Clicking the Chief-gadget ad can trigger the injection of different malware or unwanted programs. In this article, you will see the guideline of Chief-gadget popups removal in a couple of methods, as well as checking your PC for extra viruses presence.

What are Chief-gadget pop-ups?

Chief-gadget popups are a result of adware action. Adware is a kind of malware that suggests you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click advertisements, which produces a large volume of income for adware suppliers. These promotions might include explicit composition, or have a web link to malevolent content/website, considering that adware maintainers have no reason to check the goodness of the web content they are going to reveal – their single target is money.

Chief-gadget push notification.

Pop-up promotions itself is a good, cheap and also extremely efficient advertising instrument¹. It enables the vendor to link the buyers’ attention to their website, and the buyers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they intend to buy. When the consumer will receive a pop-up notification that the TV set he likes to buy is provided at the online store he/she saw previously with a 15% price cut, one will undoubtedly use this possibility and buy it. Considering the very small cost for the popups and their targeting, such an advertising and marketing tool is a much-loved thing amidst the advertising teams of large internet retail stores.

Nevertheless, such a successful plan could not be missed by virus developers. Potential to demonstrate the popup advertisements by force to the people of malware attack is a great basis for malevolent manipulations with the popup advertisements. And Chief-gadget.xyz ads is just one of hundreds that are “employed” in this system.

Site	Chief-gadget.xyz
Hosting	AS15317 Serverel Inc. United States, San Jose
Infection Type	Adware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address	173.214.240.15
Symptoms	Annoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behavior	Cleverfont1, Closingda, News
Fix Tool	GridinSoft Anti-MalwareTo remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Chief-gadget virus?

There are a lot of ways of getting infected by the adware that trigger the Chief-gadget popups tornado. A lion’s part of this computer virus cases is after the freeware or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Freeware may also be downloaded from the main site, and the adware is offered as a legit bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A number of users frequently utilize the unreliable programs from untrusted providers: abandonware, different apps that are free of cost, or perhaps hacked programs. All of these kinds of software are unsafe, due to the fact that it is very simple to integrate a Chief-gadget malware under the cover of part of the license hacking script, or as a component of the self-made algoritm inside of the Windows optimization tool.

Chief-gadget popup virus may also be hidden in the ad somewhere on the strange web page. Such web pages are in most cases packed with colorful and blinking advertisements, and their owners generally accept any promos to be placed on their page. Therefore, clicking on such banners is a risky thing: only the ad contractor realizes what will occur when you press this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you may additionally get something far more risky, like ransomware or coin miner; the large share of coin miners circulation is exactly after the malicious ads.

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

Potentially unwanted programs, like Chief-gadget pop-up virus may initiate a variety of different problems on your personal computer. Distracting is not the single problem – pop-up notifications may show you the banners, where you are offered to get one more unknown program, or “a perfect anti-malware tool”. Scareware is often distributed with the use of the last slogun. Potentially undesirable programs, in turn, can have spyware functionality. And it is pretty hard to distinguish the unwanted app from a legit one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the PUPs and fake antiviruses, popup-related advertisements are also exploited as a distribution method by different trojan viruses, for example – coin miners. The consequences of activity of such viruses is 100% unwanted, and can cost you hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not tapping these ads, 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 solve it without data and money loss. It is recommended to wipe out the viruses with anti-malware programs as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Chief-gadget pop-up advertisements?

The manual of Chief-gadget adware clearing includes 2 parts. Initially, we need to remove the malware, and after that correct the consequences of its action. The elimination process is pretty easy, since it can be performed even with the use of Microsoft Defender – anti-malware program that is available on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. However, because of its large resources usage, as well as some bugs that can be critical for some groups of individuals, Defender is often disabled by the users, so its utilization is likely impossible. In addition, different trojan viruses can switch off the embedded antivirus. It is much better to make use of the separated program that will not have such weakness.

I’d advise you to use Gridinsoft Anti-Malware² – a well-proven anti-malware tool that will surely exterminate the malware from your PC and also make an invulnerable cover with a Proactive protection feature. However, let’s deal with Chief-gadget adware first.

Download GridinSoft Anti-Malware

Removing Chief-gadget 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 Chief-gadget 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 definitely connect the right DNS while connecting to the website you want. Make a text file titled “hosts” on your computer’s 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.

Nevertheless, there is one issue that makes the things a lot more difficult to fix, especially without the anti-malware program. Most of adware variations that are utilized to show you the Chief-gadget pop-up advertisements are changing the deep browser configurations, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you try to change your browser settings after your computer was penetrated by pop-up-related malware, your browser will collapse soon. In some cases, you will see no crash, but large lag spike after pushing the “settings” key. Browser will stop responding for ~ 30 secs, and then it will be back to the typical, up until 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 advertisements on Wikipedia.
2. GridinSoft Anti-Malware review and the reasons why I recommend it for malware removal.
3. Official Microsoft guide for hosts file reset.