Clicking on the Download-step1 promotion can lead to the injection of other malware or unwanted programs. In this article, you will see the guide of Download-step1 popups removal in various manners, as well as checking your system for extra malware presence.

What are Download-step1 pop-ups?

Download-step1 popups are a consequence of adware activity. Adware is a type of malware that presents you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click advertisements, which produces a significant volume of earnings for adware suppliers. These advertisements may include sometimes shocking material, or have a web link to harmful content/website, because adware maintainers have no purpose to inspect the goodness of the web content they are going to reveal – their single target is cash.

Download-step1 push notification.

Pop-up advertising itself is an excellent, low-cost and very successful advertising solution¹. It makes it possible for the vendor to attach the customers’ attention to their website, as well as the buyers to receive the dynamic updates on the goods they wish to buy. When the person will receive a pop-up notification that the TV set he wishes to buy is offered at the online shop he/she checked out previously with a 15% price cut, one will surely use this possibility and get it. Taking into consideration the exceptionally small cost for the popups and their targeting, such an advertising instrument is a favourite thing amongst the marketing teams of big online stores.

However, such a successful system could not be missed by malware creators. Ability to demonstrate the popup advertisements forcibly to the people of malware attack is a perfect basis for malevolent manipulations with the popup promotions. And Download-step1.com advertisements is among hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Site	Download-step1.com
Hosting	AS13335 Cloudflare, Inc. United States, San Francisco
Infection Type	Adware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address	172.67.220.41
Symptoms	Annoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behavior	Advanced, More0, Stayprotectedsupport
Fix Tool	GridinSoft Anti-MalwareTo remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Download-step1 virus?

There are a number of ways of becoming contaminated by the adware that result in the Download-step1 popups storm. A lion’s part of this computer virus instances is after the freeware or cracked programs, that are distributed on the peering networks. Free software can also be downloaded from the main website, and the adware is delivered as a legitimate bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A lot of people oftentimes make use of the uncertain programs from untrusted providers: abandonware, various utilities that are free of cost, or perhaps hacked programs. All of these kinds of programs are dangerous, because it is extremely easy to include a Download-step1 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.

Download-step1 popup virus may likewise be concealed in the advertisement somewhere on the strange website. Such web pages are usually packed with colorful and blinking advertisements, and their proprietors usually permit any kind of promos to be placed on their web page. For this reason, clicking such banners is a shot in the dark: only the ad provider realizes what will occur when you click this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or undesirable programs, you may additionally receive something a lot more risky, like ransomware or coin miner; the large 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 programs, like Download-step1 popup virus may cause a wide range of different troubles on your personal computer. Distracting is not the only problem – pop-ups can present you the ads, where you are offered to download one more strange program, or “a perfect security tool”. Scareware is often distributed with the last slogun. Potentially undesirable applications, in turn, may have spyware functionality. And it is quite hard to distinguish the undesirable app from a legit one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the PUPs and fake antiviruses, popup-related promotions are also chosen as a spreading method by different trojan viruses, for example – coin miners. The consequences of activity of such malware is 100% unpleasant, and can cost you several hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not interacting with these ads, they can be clicked by whoever who also uses your PC – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the things can become much more serious, and it will be much harder to deal with it without data loss. It is recommended to wipe out the viruses with antivirus programs as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Download-step1 pop-up advertisements?

The manual of Download-step1 adware removal includes 2 parts. Initially, we need to deal with the malware, and after that fix the effects of its action. The elimination task is very simple, since it can be done even with making use of Microsoft Defender – anti-virus tool that is present on all computers with Windows 8/10. Nevertheless, due to its substantial resources usage, along with some errors that may be pivotal for some groups of users, Defender is often disabled by the users, so its use is most likely impossible. Moreover, a variety of trojan viruses can shut off the embedded antivirus. It is far better to use the separated program that will not have such exposures.

I would certainly advise you to utilize Gridinsoft Anti-Malware² – a well-proven antivirus device that will undoubtedly erase the viruses from your system and make an impenetrable cover with a Proactive protection feature. However, let’s deal with Download-step1 adware first.

Download GridinSoft Anti-Malware

Removing Download-step1 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 Download-step1 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 browser will connect the accurate DNS while connecting to the site you need. Make a text file named “hosts” on your pc’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.

Nonetheless, there is one trouble that makes things much harder to fix, especially without the anti-malware software. Most of adware variants that are utilized to show you the Download-step1 pop-up promotions are altering the deep browser setups, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you attempt to fix your browser settings after your machine was infected by pop-up-related malware, your browser will certainly collapse quickly. Sometimes, you will see no crash, but large lag spike after pressing the “settings” key. Browser will stop responding for ~ 30 secs, and after that it will be back to the typical, until you try to open settings 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 ads on Wikipedia.
2. GridinSoft Anti-Malware overview and the reasons why I advise it for malware removal.
3. Official Microsoft guide for hosts file reset.