Clicking on the Ourcoolposts promotion can cause the injection of different malware or unwanted programs. In this article, you will see the guideline of Ourcoolposts popups clearing in various ways, as well as inspecting your system for other viruses existence.

What are Ourcoolposts pop-ups?

Ourcoolposts popups are an effect of adware action. Adware is a type of malware that shows you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click advertisements, which creates a substantial volume of profit for adware distributors. These advertisements might include sometimes shocking content, or have a link to malevolent content/website, considering that adware maintainers have no reason to check the goodness of the material they are going to reveal – their solitary target is cash.

Ourcoolposts push notification.

Pop-up marketing itself is a very good, low-priced and also extremely productive advertising method¹. It enables the vendor to attach the customers’ interest to their site, as well as the buyers to receive the dynamic updates on the goods they wish to buy. When the consumer will receive a pop-up notification that the TV set he likes to buy is available at the online shop he/she saw earlier with a 15% price cut, one will undoubtedly use this opportunity and get it. Considering the incredibly small cost for the popups and their targeting, such a promotion and marketing instrument is a favourite thing amidst the advertising teams of big internet stores.

Nonetheless, such a successful scheme could not be missed by virus creators. Option to demonstrate the popup advertisements by force to the victims of malware attack is a great basis for malicious manipulations with the popup promotions. And Ourcoolposts.com advertisements is just one of hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Site	Ourcoolposts.com
Hosting	AS9002 RETN Limited Netherlands, Amsterdam
Infection Type	Adware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address	139.45.197.151
Symptoms	Annoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behavior	Ukiketgetoe, Unrelered, Webpushtech
Fix Tool	GridinSoft Anti-MalwareTo remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Ourcoolposts virus?

There are a lot of ways of getting contaminated by the adware that create the Ourcoolposts popups storm. A lion’s part of this malware incidents is after the free software or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Free software may likewise be downloaded from the main web page, and the adware is delivered as a legitimate bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A plenty of users regularly make use of the unreliable programs from untrusted providers: abandonware, different apps that are free, or even hacked programs. All of these kinds of applications are risky, since it is quite easy to integrate a Ourcoolposts malware under the guise of part of the license hacking script, or as a part of the self-made algoritm inside of the Windows optimization tool.

Ourcoolposts popup malware can likewise be hidden in the ad somewhere on the odd website. Such web pages are usually loaded with intense and blinking advertisements, and their proprietors often approve any type of promotions to be posted on their web page. For this reason, clicking such banners is a risky thing: only the advertisement provider knows what will occur when you click this ad. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or undesirable programs, you may also receive something much more damaging, like ransomware or coin miner; the substantial share of coin miners circulation is exactly after the malicious promotions.

The statistic shows that people dislike popup advertising more than other types of promotions

Potentially undesirable applications, like Ourcoolposts pop-up virus can cause a lot of different problems on your personal computer. Distracting is not the only problem – pop-up notifications may show you the advertisements, where you are offered to download one more unknown program, or “a perfect security tool”. Scareware is usually distributed with the last motto. Potentially undesirable programs, in turn, can have spyware functionality. And it is pretty hard to distinguish the undesirable app from a normal one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the PUPs and fake antiviruses, popup-related ads are also exploited as a distribution way by various trojan viruses, for example – coin miners. The consequences of actions of such viruses is 100% unpleasant, and can cost you several hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not interacting with these promotions, they may be clicked by whoever who also uses your personal computer – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the situation can become much more serious, and it will be much harder to solve it without data and money loss. It is recommended to remove the viruses with antivirus programs as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Ourcoolposts pop-up advertisements?

The manual of Ourcoolposts adware clearing consists of 2 sections. Initially, we need to deal with the malware, and afterwards repair the results of its activity. The elimination process is quite easy, due to the fact that it can be performed even with making use of Microsoft Defender – anti-virus software that is present on all computers with Windows 8/10. However, because of its substantial resources consumption, as well as some bugs that can be serious for some groups of users, Defender is oftentimes disabled by the users, so its utilization is most likely impossible. Moreover, a variety of trojan viruses can shut off the embedded antivirus. It is far better to make use of the separated program that will not have such exposures.

I would certainly advise you to use Gridinsoft Anti-Malware² – a well-proven security device that will certainly wipe out the viruses from your personal computer and make an impenetrable cover with a Proactive protection function. However, let’s take care of Ourcoolposts adware initially.

Download GridinSoft Anti-Malware

Removing Ourcoolposts popup virus with GridinSoft Anti-Malware

• Download and install GridinSoft Anti-Malware. After the installation, you will be offered to perform the Standard Scan. Approve this action.
• Standard scan checks the logical disk where the system files are stored, together with the files of programs you have already installed. The scan lasts up to 6 minutes.
• When the scan is over, you may choose the action for each detected virus. For all files of Ourcoolposts malware the default option is “Delete”. Press “Apply” to finish the malware removal.

Now, when the computer is clean of viruses, we can proceed to the browser reset. You can do this step manually, as well as with the use of GridinSoft Anti-Malware.

Reset browser settings to default

Manual method of browser reset

1. Open “Settings and more” tab in upper right corner, then find here “Settings” button. In the appeared menu, choose “Reset settings” option :
2. After picking the Reset Settings option, you will see the following menu, stating about the settings which will be reverted to original :

1. Open Menu tab (three strips in upper right corner) and click the “Help” button. In the appeared menu choose “troubleshooting information” :
2. In the next screen, find the “Refresh Firefox” option :

After choosing this option, you will see the next message :

1. Open Settings tab, find the “Advanced” button. In the extended tab choose the “Reset and clean up” button :
2. In the appeared list, click on the “Restore settings to their original defaults” :
3. Finally, you will see the window, where you can see all the settings which will be reset to default :

1. Open Settings menu by pressing the gear icon in the toolbar (left side of the browser window), then click “Advanced” option, and choose “Browser” button in the drop-down list. Scroll down, to the bottom of the settings menu. Find there “Restore settings to their original defaults” option :


2. After clicking the “Restore settings…” button, you will see the window, where all settings, which will be reset, are shown :

When the browsers are reset, you need to make sure that your browser will connect the right DNS while connecting to the site you need. Make a text file named “hosts” on your computer’s desktop, then open it and fill it with the following text³:

# Copyright (c) 1993-2006 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a ‘#’ symbol.
#
# For example:
#
# 102.54.94.97 rhino.acme.com # source server
# 38.25.63.10 x.acme.com # x client host
# localhost name resolution is handle within DNS itself.
# 127.0.0.1 localhost
# ::1 localhost

Find the hosts.txt file in C:/Windows/System32/drivers/etc directory. Rename this file to “hosts.old.txt” (to distinguish it from the new one), and then move the file you created on the desktop to this folder. Remove the hosts.old from this folder. Now you have your hosts file as good as new.

Nonetheless, there is one issue that makes things much more difficult to restore, especially without the anti-malware software. Most of adware variations that are used to show you the Ourcoolposts pop-up promotions are adjusting the deep browser settings, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you attempt to fix your browser settings after your system was infected by pop-up-related malware, your browser will certainly collapse soon. In certain cases, you will see no crash, however, large lag spike after pushing the “settings” key. Browser will stop responding for ~ 30 seconds, and then it will be back to the typical, till you try to open settings once again.

Reset your browser settings with GridinSoft Anti-Malware

To reset your browser with GridinSoft Anti-Malware, open the Tools tab, and click the “Reset browser settings” button.

You can see the list of the options for each browser. By default, they are set up in the manner which fits the majority of users. Press the “Reset” button (lower right corner). In a minute your browser will be as good as new.

The browser reset is recommended to perform through the antivirus tool by GridinSoft, because last is also able to reset the HOSTS file without any additional commands.

References

1. More about pop-up advertisements on Wikipedia.
2. GridinSoft Anti-Malware review and also the reasons why I suggest it for malware removal.
3. Official Microsoft guide for hosts file reset.