Hide YouTube Comments Malware

Browser Hijacker
by Brandon Skies
March 8, 2023

Hide YouTube Comments

Hide YouTube Comments is an unwanted add-on for popular browser that hijacks the search engine of the browser it is installed on and begins to inject ads in it. Hide YouTube Comments also puts a new starting page in the browser so that it can more effectively promote the sites that sponsor it.

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If your personal computer is flooded with a ton of ads or pop-up windows, banners or some other forms of sponsored commercials, it is very likely that you have installed a program called Hide YouTube Comments on your system. This kind of programs are referred to as Browser Hijackers and they are created for a solely commercial purpose. In many cases, such pieces of software are intelligently sneaked along with other software, which may be free or useful, but instead of offering a real functionality they tend to take over your browser with aggressive ads. The moment the disturbance caused by the Ads exceeds the benefits of using the application, you can say you are dealing with a Browser Hijacker. The most efficient method to handle these applications is to get rid of them quickly and, on this page, we will show you how to do that.  

Whenever people encounter pieces like the Hide YouTube Comments, Now Here Captcha or Fast Captcha they typically inaccurately believe their device has been attacked by a malicious program. The Browser Hijacker, however, is not a PC virus because it does not share any of the malicious features that typical viruses have. At its worst, such software could perhaps irritate you showing tons of advertisements on your screen, but that is as far as it goes. A real virus, such as a Ransomware, for example, not only can sneak inside people’s machines without being detected but also can make all of their files inaccessible until a ransom is paid for their liberation. Compared to that, a hijacker is more a source of annoyance rather than a real hazardous infection. In fact, a lot of anti-virus programs do not take any action against widely known Hijacker programs for the fact that the latter are allowed by the law. Yet, despite lacking the harmful abilities of a Ransomware, such software should still be removed from the computer with the help of a trusted removal tool or a dedicated removal guide such as the one below.

SUMMARY:

NameHide YouTube Comments
TypeBrowser Hijacker
Danger LevelMedium (nowhere near threats like Ransomware, but still a security risk)
Symptoms Different aggressive ads may spam your screen and may redirect you to unfamiliar websites.
Distribution MethodSoftware bundles, ads, free downloads, torrents, automatic updates, shareware sites.
Detection Tool

Please follow all the steps below in order to remove Hide YouTube Comments!

How to remove Hide YouTube Comments

  1. First, click the Start Menu on your Windows PC.
  2. Type Programs and Settings in the Start Menu, click the first item, and find Hide YouTube Comments in the programs list that would show up.
  3. Select Hide YouTube Comments from the list and click on Uninstall.
  4. Follow the steps in the removal wizard.

What we suggest you do first is, check the list of programs that are presently installed on the infected device and uninstall any rogue software that you find there:

  • From the Start Menu, navigate to Control Panel ->>> Programs and Features ->>> Uninstall a Program.
  • Next, carefully search for unfamiliar programs or programs that have been installed recently and could be related to Hide YouTube Comments.
  • If you find any of the programs suspicious then uninstall them if they turn out to be linked to Hide YouTube Comments.
  • If a notification appears on your screen when you try to uninstall a specific questionable program prompting you to just alter it or repair it, make sure you choose NO and complete the steps from the removal wizard.

Remove Hide YouTube Comments from Chrome

  1. Click on the three dots in the right upper corner
  2. Go to more tools
  3. Now select extensions
  4. Remove the Hide YouTube Comments extension
  • Once you open Chrome, click on the three-dots icon to open the browser’s menu, go to More Tools/ More Options, and then to Extensions.
  • Again, find the items on that page that could be linked to Hide YouTube Comments and/or that might be causing problems in the browser and delete them.
  • Afterwards, go to this folder: Computer > C: > Users > *Your User Account* > App Data > Local > Google > Chrome > User Data. In there, you will find a folder named Default – you should change its name to Backup Default and restart the PC.
  • Note that the App Data folder is normally hidden so you’d have to first make the hidden files and folders on your PC visible before you can access it.

How to get rid of Hide YouTube Comments on FF/Edge/etc.

  1. Open the browser and select the menu icon.
  2. From the menu, click on the Add-ons button.
  3. Look for the Hide YouTube Comments extension
  4. Get rid of Hide YouTube Comments by removing it from extensions

If using Firefox:

  • Open Firefox
  • Select the three parallel lines menu and go to Add-ons.
  • Find the unwanted add-on and delete it from the browser – if there is more than one unwanted extension, remove all of them.
  • Go to the browser menu again, select Options, and then click on Home from the sidebar to the left.
  • Check the current addresses for the browser’s homepage and new-tab page and change them if they are currently set to address(es) you don’t know or trust.

If using MS Edge/IE:

  • Start Edge
  • Select the browser menu and go to Extensions.
  • Find and uninstall any Edge extensions that look undesirable and unwanted.
  • Select Settings from the browser menu and click on Appearance.
  • Check the new-tab page address of the browser and if it has been modified by “Hide YouTube Comments” or another unwanted app, change it to an address that you’d want to be the browser’s new-tab page.

How to Delete Hide YouTube Comments

  1. Open task manager
  2. Look for the Hide YouTube Comments process
  3. Select it and click on End task
  4. Open the file location to delete Hide YouTube Comments
  • Access the Task Manager by pressing together the Ctrl + Alt + Del keys and then selecting Task Manager.
  • Open Processes and there try to find a process with the name of the unwanted software. If you find it, select it with the right button of the mouse and click on the Open File Location option.
  • If you don’t see a “Hide YouTube Comments” process in the Task Manager, look for another suspicious process with an unusual name. It is likely that the unwanted process would be using lots of RAM and CPU so pay attention to the number of resources each process is using.
  • Tip: If you think you have singled out the unwanted process but are not sure, it’s always a good idea to search for information about it on the Internet – this should give you a general idea if the process is a legitimate one from a regular program or from your OS or if it is indeed likely linked to the adware.
  • If you find another suspicious process, open its File Location too.
  • Once in the File Location folder for the suspicious process, start testing all of the files that are stored there by dragging them to our free online scanner available below.
  • Each file will be scanned with up to 64 antivirus programs to ensure maximum accuracy
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    • If the scanner finds malware in any of the files, return to the Processes tab in the Task Manager, select the suspected process, and then select the End Process option to quit it.
    • Go back to the folder where the files of that process are located and delete all of the files that you are allowed to delete. If all files get deleted normally, exit the folder and delete that folder too. If one or more of the files showed an error message when you tried to delete them, leave them for now and return to try to delete them again once you’ve completed the rest of the guide.

    How to Uninstall Hide YouTube Comments

    1. Click on the home button
    2. Search for Startup Apps
    3. Look for Hide YouTube Comments in there
    4. Uninstall Hide YouTube Comments from Startup Apps by turning it off
    • Now you need to carefully search for and uninstall any Hide YouTube Comments-related entries from the Registry. The easiest way to do this is to open the Registry Editor app (type Regedit in the windows search field and press Enter) and then open a Find dialog (CTRL+F key combination) where you have to type the name of the threat. 
    • Perform a search by clicking on the Find Next button and delete any detected results. Do this as many times as needed until no more results are found. 
    • After that, to ensure that there are no remaining entries lined to Hide YouTube Comments in the Registry, go manually to the following directories and delete them:
    • HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Random Directory. 
    • HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Run/Random
    • HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Internet Explorer/Main/Random

    Is Hide YouTube Comments dangeous?

    This extension will attempt to steal your Facebook AD account details on install, including your API token. There are hundreds of Browser Hijackers around the web and the Hide YouTube Comments is certainly not the only one that you will meet. The essential thing to remember about this type of programs is to never click and explore any of the pop-ups they display. In case you are being spammed with ads related to specific items that you would like or that you’ve bought recently, then this is most likely because the Hide YouTube Comments has read throughout the registry files, kept in your browser, and has acquired information about your recent Internet searches. Quite a lot of organizations collect data using this method – Google itself is known for doing it – but at least these companies are public and have a popularity to defend against a scandal. Browser Hijacker developers are usually small and unknown, giving them the power to sell and resell the information that they have acquired from you to whoever is interested in paying for it. Another thing to be aware of is that not every advert, displayed by the hijacker, is reliable. The possibility of opening something dangerous is high – you could lose your money on a low-quality product that doesn’t actually work or worse. That’s why it is just better to remove the unwanted program as soon as possible.


    About the author

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    Brandon Skies

    Brandon is a researcher and content creator in the fields of cyber-security and virtual privacy. Years of experience enable him to provide readers with important information and adequate solutions for the latest software and malware problems.

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