Clicking on the Special-For advertisement can lead to the injection of various malware or unwanted programs. In this post, you will see the guideline of Special-For popups removal in multiple methods, and also checking your personal computer for extra malware existence.

What are Special-For pop-ups?

Special-For popups are a consequence of adware action. Adware is a sort of malware that presents you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click advertisements, which produces a significant volume of revenue for adware suppliers. These promotions may include explicit information, or have a web link to malevolent content/website, since adware maintainers have no reason to examine the goodness of the web content they are going to reveal – their solitary target is money.

Special-For push notification.

Pop-up marketing itself is a good, low-cost and very productive advertising instrument¹. It makes it possible for the vendor to attach the buyers’ attention to their website, as well as the buyers to receive the dynamic updates on the goods they want to purchase. When the customer will receive a pop-up notification that the TV set he likes to purchase is offered at the online shop he/she visited previously with a 15% discount, one will surely use this possibility and buy it. Considering the extremely low cost for the popups and their targeting, such an advertising tool is a favorite thing among the marketing teams of big internet retailers.

Nevertheless, such a profitable strategy could not be missed by virus creators. Potential to show the popup ads forcibly to the targets of malware invasion is an excellent basis for malicious manipulations with the popup advertisements. And Special-for.me ads is just one of hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Site	Special-for.me
Hosting	AS60781 LeaseWeb Netherlands B.V. Netherlands, Amsterdam
Infection Type	Adware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address	95.168.170.165
Symptoms	Annoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behavior	Aymentpeo, Getsmartyapp, News
Fix Tool	GridinSoft Anti-MalwareTo remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Special-For virus?

There are a lot of ways of getting contaminated by the adware that lead to the Special-For popups tornado. A lion’s part of this virus instances is after the freeware or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Freeware may also be downloaded from the official web page, and the adware is delivered as a legitimate bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A huge amount of individuals regularly use the dubious programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, a wide range of apps that are free, or even hacked programs. All of these types of software are risky, due to the fact that it is quite simple to integrate a Special-For malware under the cover of part of the license hacking script, or as a part of the self-made algoritm inside of the Windows optimization tool.

Special-For popup malware may additionally be concealed in the promotion somewhere on the strange website. Such web pages are in most cases packed with intense and blinking advertisements, and their proprietors often approve any promotions to be published on their page. For this reason, clicking such banners is a shot in the dark: only the advertisement provider realizes what will occur when you click this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or undesirable programs, you may additionally get something much more risky, like ransomware or coin miner; the substantial share of coin miners distribution is exactly after the malicious advertisements.

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

Potentially undesirable applications, like Special-For popup virus can cause a wide range of different problems on your personal computer. Distracting is not the only problem – pop-up notifications may present you the banners, where you are offered to download another dubious program, or “a perfect security tool”. Scareware is usually distributed with the last slogun. Potentially unwanted applications, in turn, can have spyware functionality. And it is very hard to distinguish the unwanted app from a good one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the PUPs and fake antiviruses, popup-related banners are also exploited as a distribution method by various trojan viruses, for instance – coin miners. The consequences of activity of such viruses is 100% unpleasant, and can cost you hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not interacting with these banners, they can be clicked by whoever who also uses your computer – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the things may become much more serious, and it will be much harder to deal with it without information loss. It is recommended to eliminate the viruses with anti-malware programs as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Special-For pop-up advertisements?

The manual of Special-For adware elimination contains 2 sections. First, we need to exterminate the malware, and afterwards fix the results of its activity. The elimination task is really easy, since it can be executed even with making use of Microsoft Defender – anti-virus program that is present on all computers with Windows 8/10. Nonetheless, because of its large resources utilization, as well as some bugs that may be crucial for some categories of users, Defender is often turned off by the users, so its use is most likely impossible. Additionally, a variety of trojan viruses are able to disable the embedded antivirus. It is much better to use the separated program that will not have such weakness.

I would certainly recommend you to use Gridinsoft Anti-Malware² – a well-proven antivirus device that will definitely remove the malware from your PC and create an invulnerable cover with a Proactive protection function. However, let’s manage Special-For adware first.

Download GridinSoft Anti-Malware

Removing Special-For 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 Special-For 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 ensure that your web browser will be connected the proper DNS while connecting to the website you need. Make a text file named “hosts” on your desktop, then open it and fill it with the following lines³:

# 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.

However, there is one problem that makes things a lot harder to repair, specifically without the anti-malware software. Most of adware versions that are used to show you the Special-For pop-up ads are modifying the deep browser setups, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you try to change your browser settings after your system was infected by pop-up-related malware, your browser will certainly collapse soon. In some cases, you will see no crash, however, significant lag spike after pressing the “settings” key. Browser will stop reacting for ~ 30 seconds, and afterwards it will be back to the typical, till you attempt to open settings one more time.

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 ads on Wikipedia.
2. GridinSoft Anti-Malware review and the reasons why I recommend it for malware elimination.
3. Official Microsoft guide for hosts file reset.