When Ads Start Popping Up All Over While You’re Using Your Browser
We get quite a bit of email from people who are afraid they’ve been infected with malware or viruses or who have just installed a Windows update and now when they browse the web or check their email with their favorite browser ads start popping up all over.
Well, we’ll admit, Windows updates have not been paragons of flawless software engineering – quite the contrary. Windows updates may be a lot of things, but they don’t install malware or adware on your computer.
It’s natural when things change to blame the last thing that changed on your computer – if that was a Windows update – it gets the blame. But Windows updates do not install bad extensions in your favorite browser. But many other tricky software bundles do. You really must be careful about what you install these days – especially freeware and browser extensions.
Many excellent, clean freeware programs and browser extensions exist, but many are bundled with badware by the download site. CNet and Softonics are known for this, but many other download sites are playing the same game. Right now, we only trust one download site unconditionally and that’s Snapfiles. And for an alternate download site, we choose Major Geeks.
And the best place to get browser extensions is from the browser’s “Store”. The Chrome Web Store, Firefox Add-ons and Extensions, and the Microsoft Edge Extensions. Also, keep in mind, any Chrome extension can be used with Microsoft Edge.
If all of a sudden you start getting ads popping up whenever you browse the web or check your email, the first thing you should do is reset your browser and clear your browser’s history.
Learn how to reset the 3 most popular browsers
Chrome
For a complete guide see our tutorial here.
Firefox
For a complete tutorial on resetting Firefox see this page.
Microsoft Edge
For our guide on resetting Microsoft Edge visit this page.
When you should consider resetting your browser
When your favorite browser is not working right due to corruption or a bad extension you installed, or when you start getting popups, warnings, or advertisements you shouldn’t be getting, or whenever something else does not seem quite right — resetting your browser might be just the fix you need.