Did you just get a pop-up from plarium.com and wonder where it came from? Did the plarium.com ad appear to have been launched from a web site that under normal circumstances don’t use aggressive advertising such as pop-up windows? Or did the plarium.com pop-up show up while you clicked a link on one of the major search engines, such as Google, Bing or Yahoo?

Here’s how the plarium.com pop-up looked like when I got it on my computer:

The ad is for the Stormfall Age of War game. The URL mentions the adcash.com domain.

If this description sounds like your system, you most likely have some adware installed on your machine that pops up the plarium.com ads. There’s no use contacting the owners of the web site you currently were browsing. The advertisements are not coming from them. I’ll do my best to help you remove the plarium.com pop-up in this blog post. This is done by cleaning your computer from the unwanted adware.

If you have been following this blog already know this, but if you are new: Not long ago I dedicated a few of my lab machines and purposely installed some adware programs on them. I have been observing the behaviour on these machines to see what kinds of advertisements that are displayed. I’m also looking on other interesting things such as if the adware auto-updates, or if it downloads additional unwanted software on the computers. I first found the plarium.com pop-up on one of these lab machines.

So, how do you remove the plarium.com pop-up ads? On the machine where I got the plarium.com ads I had BlockAndSurf, TinyWallet and BrowserWarden installed. I removed them with FreeFixer and that stopped the plarium.com pop-ups and all the other ads I was getting in Mozilla Firefox.

It seems as plarium.com is getting quite a lot of traffic, based on Alexa’s traffic rank:

The problem with this type of pop-up is that it can be popped up by many variants of adware. This makes it impossible to say exactly what you need to remove to stop the pop-ups.

Anyway, here’s my suggestion for the plarium.com ads removal:

The first thing I would do to remove the plarium.com pop-ups is to examine the software installed on the machine, by opening the “Uninstall programs” dialog. You can reach this dialog from the Windows Control Panel. If you are using one of the more recent versions of Windows you can just type in “uninstall” in the Control Panel’s search field to find that dialog:

Click on the “Uninstall a program” link and the Uninstall programs dialog will open up:

Do you see something suspicious listed there or something that you don’t remember installing? Tip: Sort on the “Installed On” column to see if some program was installed approximately about the same time as you started seeing the plarium.com pop-ups.

The next thing to check would be your browser’s add-ons. Adware often show up under the add-ons dialog in Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer or Safari. Is there anything that looks suspicious? Something that you don’t remember installing?

I think most users will be able to find and remove the adware with the steps outlined above, but in case that did not work you can try the FreeFixer removal tool to identify and remove the adware. FreeFixer is a freeware tool that I started develop many years ago. It’s a tool designed to manually identify and uninstall unwanted software. When you’ve found the unwanted files you can simply tick a checkbox and click on the Fix button to remove the unwanted file.

FreeFixer’s removal feature is not crippled like many other removal tools out there. It will not require you to purchase the program just when you are about to remove the unwanted files.

And if you’re having problems determining if a file is clean or unwanted in the FreeFixer scan result, click on the More Info link for the file. That will open up your web browser with a page which contains additional details about the file. On that web page, check out the VirusTotal report which can be very useful:

Here you can see FreeFixer in action removing the adware that caused pop-up ads:

Did you find any adware on your machine? Did that stop the plarium.com ads? Please post the name of the adware you uninstalled from your machine in the comment below.

Thank you!

Does this sound familiar? You see pop-up advertisements from bestones.net while browsing websites that normally don’t advertise in pop-up windows. The pop-ups manage to escape the built-in pop-up blockers in Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer or Safari. Perhaps the bestones.net pop-ups appear when clicking search results from a Google search? Or does the pop-ups show up even when you’re not browsing?

Here’s a screenshot of the bestones.net pop-up ad when it showed up on my machine:

The download was digitally signed by Andrey Hmelnikov.

Does this sound like your story, you most likely have some adware installed on your computer that pops up the bestones.net ads. There’s no use contacting the owners of the website you were browsing. The ads are not coming from them. I’ll try help you to remove the bestones.net pop-ups in this blog post.

Those that have been visiting this blog already know this, but for new visitors: Recently I dedicated a few of my lab computers and intentionally installed some adware programs on them. I have been monitoring the actions on these systems to see what kinds of advertisements that are displayed. I’m also looking on other interesting things such as if the adware auto-updates, or if it downloads additional unwanted software on the systems. I first observed the bestones.net pop-up on one of these lab machines.

bestones.net resolves to the 54.69.104.255 IP address. bestones.net was registered on 2014-08-21.

So, how do you remove the bestones.net pop-up ads? On the machine where I got the bestones.net ads I had PriceLess, PriceFountain, PriceHorse and SpeedCheck installed. I removed them with FreeFixer and that stopped the bestones.net pop-ups and all the other ads I was getting in Internet Explorer.

The issue with pop-ups such as this one is that it can be launched by many variants of adware. This makes it impossible to say exactly what you need to remove to stop the pop-ups.

So, what can be done? To remove the bestones.net pop-up ads you need to check your system for adware or other types of unwanted software and uninstall it. Here’s my suggested removal procedure:

1. Review what programs you have installed in the Add/Remove programs dialog in the Windows Control Panel. Do you see anything that you don’t remember installing or that was recently installed?
2. You can also check the browser add-ons. Same thing here, do you see something that you don’t remember installing?
3. If that does not help, you can give FreeFixer a try. FreeFixer is built to assist users when manually tracking down adware and other types of unwanted software. It is a freeware utility that I’ve been working since 2006 and it scans your computer at lots of locations where unwanted software is known to hook into your computer. If you would like to get additional details about a file in FreeFixer’s scan result, you can just click the More Info link for that file and a web page with a VirusTotal report will open up, which can be very useful to determine if the file is safe or malware:

   

Here’s a video tutorial on how to remove the pop-ups with FreeFixer:

Did this blog post help you to remove the bestones.net pop-up ads? Please let me know or how I can improve this blog post.

Thank you!

Does this sound familiar? You see pop-up adverts from aunewsreport.com while browsing web sites that mostly don’t advertise in pop-up windows. The pop-ups manage to bypass the built-in pop-up blockers in Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari or Opera. Perhaps the aunewsreport.com pop-ups show up when clicking search results from Google? Or does the pop-ups appear even when you’re not browsing?

Here’s how the aunewsreport.com pop-up looked like when I got it on my computer:

Does this sound like what you see your machine, you probably have some adware installed on your machine that pops up the aunewsreport.com ads. Contacting the owner of the web site would be a waste of time. They are not responsible for the ads. I’ll try help you with the aunewsreport.com removal in this blog post.

I found the aunewsreport.com pop-up on one of the lab machines where I have some adware running. I’ve talked about this in some of the previous blog posts. The adware was installed on purpose, and from time to time I check if anything new has appeared, such as pop-up windows, new tabs in the browsers, injected ads on site that usually don’t show ads, or if some new files have been saved to the hard-drive.

aunewsreport.com was registered on 2015-01-14.

So, how do you remove the aunewsreport.com pop-up ads? On the machine where I got the aunewsreport.com ads I had BlockAndSurf, BrowserWarden and TinyWallet installed. I removed them with FreeFixer and that stopped the aunewsreport.com pop-ups and all the other ads I was getting in Mozilla Firefox.

The issue with pop-ups such as this one is that it can be popped up by many variants of adware, not just the adware on my computer. This makes it impossible to say exactly what you need to remove to stop the pop-ups.

To remove the aunewsreport.com pop-up ads you need to examine your machine for adware or other types of unwanted software and uninstall it. Here’s my suggested removal procedure:

1. Examine what programs you have installed in the Add/Remove programs dialog in the Windows Control Panel. Do you see anything that you don’t remember installing or that was recently installed?
2. How about your browser add-ons. Anything in the list that you don’t remember installing?
3. If that did not help, I’d recommend a scan with FreeFixer to manually track down the adware. FreeFixer is a freeware tool that I’m working on that scans your computer at lots of locations, such as browser add-ons, processes, Windows services, recently modified files, etc. If you want to get additional details about a file in the scan result, you can click the More Info link for that file and a web page will open up with a VirusTotal report which will be very useful to determine if the file is safe or malware:

   

Here’s a video tutorial showing FreeFixer in action removing pop-up ads:

Did you find any adware on your machine? Did that stop the aunewsreport.com ads? Please post the name of the adware you uninstalled from your machine in the comment below.

Thank you!