*Source of claim SH can remove it.
Axegrinder
This page aims to help you remove Axegrinder Virus. Our removal instructions work for Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer, as well as every version of Windows.
Axegrinder “Virus” is a new browser hijacker application which has recently been reported to redirect its users to different advertising sites and suspicious web locations. In order to do that, the application tends to impose some potentially unwanted changes to the homepage address or to the search engine of browsers such as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer or Safari without any warning. Axegrinder may display sponsored links, pay-per-click ads, and pop-ups and modify the results of the search queries by showing paid banners and offers.
Browser hijacker apps like Axegrinder “Virus” are often regarded as annoying and intrusive, but, luckily, they are not as harmful as other types of unwanted software such as Ransomware, Spyware or Trojans. They cannot infect the system like a computer virus but may often get installed on the PC via software bundles, free download links, ad-supported pages injected with advertising software or via different spam messages, torrents, and freeware. Sometimes, such applications may get downloaded from their official web page and they might provide the users with some free functionality. However, in most of the cases, this supposed functionality cannot compensate for the advertising disturbance caused by the ads.
Additionally, such potentially unwanted applications may often collect browsing information and use it to monetize the users’ clicks and to generate revenue from pay-per-click ads for their creators. Different non-personal data may be monitored and transferred to the application’s owners and can later be used for targeted online advertising campaigns. This data may contain:
- Bookmarks;
- Recent search queries;
- Viewed web pages and duration of the visit;
- Links that have been clicked;
- IP address;
- location
- Internet Service Provider (ISP) and others.
To avoid getting such information collected from your browser, you can uninstall Axegrinder “Virus” with the help of the professional removal tool on this page or use the manual removal guide below to remove all of the hijacker’s components.
Risks and protection
If you want to stay safe online and avoid security risks, it is very important that your personal information is safe and that you do not reveal it to different dubious web pages, unfamiliar advertising companies, and to third-parties. It is also very important that you avoid interaction with unfamiliar web content and sketchy sites and also that you stick only to well-known and reputed web locations. With software like Axegrinder on your PC, however, that might be very difficult because, not only may it monitor your online behavior and share it with its partners but the job of the browser hijacker is to redirect you to various promotional pages, ads, sponsored links, offers, and pop-ups and to make you click on them as much as possible. Such behavior, despite not being malicious on its own, may possibly expose you to security hazards in the form of dubious links, fake offers or even downloads that may contain dangerous components such as Trojan scripts or Ransomware viruses. That’s why it is not a good idea to trust everything that an application like Axegrinder may display on your screen and to click on it blindly. What we’d generally advise you is to stay safe and use the instructions on this page to uninstall the annoying hijacker and remove all of its ads.
SUMMARY:
*Source of claim SH can remove it.
Remove Axegrinder
To try and remove Axegrinder quickly you can try this:
- Go to your browser’s settings and select More Tools (or Add-ons, depending on your browser).
- Then click on the Extensions tab.
- Look for the Axegrinder extension (as well as any other unfamiliar ones).
- Remove Axegrinder by clicking on the Trash Bin icon next to its name.
- Confirm and get rid of Axegrinder and any other suspicious items.
If this does not work as described please follow our more detailed Axegrinder removal guide below.
If you have a Windows virus, continue with the guide below.
If you have a Mac virus, please use our How to remove Ads on Mac guide.
If you have an Android virus, please use our Android Malware Removal guide.
If you have an iPhone virus, please use our iPhone Virus Removal guide
Some of the steps may require you to exit the page. Bookmark it for later reference.
Next, Reboot in Safe Mode (use this guide if you don’t know how to do it).
Uninstall the Axegrinder app and kill its processes
The first thing you must try to do is look for any sketchy installs on your computer and uninstall anything you think may come from Axegrinder. After that, you’ll also need to get rid of any processes that may be related to the unwanted app by searching for them in the Task Manager.
Note that sometimes an app, especially a rogue one, may ask you to install something else or keep some of its data (such as settings files) on your PC – never agree to that when trying to delete a potentially rogue software. You need to make sure that everything is removed from your PC to get rid of the malware. Also, if you aren’t allowed to go through with the uninstallation, proceed with the guide, and try again after you’ve completed everything else.
- Uninstalling the rogue app
- Killing any rogue processes
Type Apps & Features in the Start Menu, open the first result, sort the list of apps by date, and look for suspicious recently installed entries.
Click on anything you think could be linked to Axegrinder, then select uninstall, and follow the prompts to delete the app.
Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc, click More Details (if it’s not already clicked), and look for suspicious entries that may be linked to Axegrinder.
If you come across a questionable process, right-click it, click Open File Location, scan the files with the free online malware scanner shown below, and then delete anything that gets flagged as a threat.
After that, if the rogue process is still visible in the Task Manager, right-click it again and select End Process.
Undo Axegrinder changes made to different system settings
It’s possible that Axegrinder has affected various parts of your system, making changes to their settings. This can enable the malware to stay on the computer or automatically reinstall itself after you’ve seemingly deleted it. Therefore, you need to check the following elements by going to the Start Menu, searching for specific system elements that may have been affected, and pressing Enter to open them and see if anything has been changed there without your approval. Then you must undo any unwanted changes made to these settings in the way shown below:
- DNS
- Hosts
- Startup
- Task
Scheduler - Services
- Registry
Type in Start Menu: View network connections
Right-click on your primary network, go to Properties, and do this:
Type in Start Menu: C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts
Type in the Start Menu: Startup apps
Type in the Start Menu: Task Scheduler
Type in the Start Menu: Services
Type in the Start Menu: Registry Editor
Press Ctrl + F to open the search window
Remove Axegrinder from your browsers
- Delete Axegrinder from Chrome
- Delete Axegrinder from Firefox
- Delete Axegrinder from Edge
- Go to the Chrome menu > More tools > Extensions, and toggle off and Remove any unwanted extensions.
- Next, in the Chrome Menu, go to Settings > Privacy and security > Clear browsing data > Advanced. Tick everything except Passwords and click OK.
- Go to Privacy & Security > Site Settings > Notifications and delete any suspicious sites that are allowed to send you notifications. Do the same in Site Settings > Pop-ups and redirects.
- Go to Appearance and if there’s a suspicious URL in the Custom web address field, delete it.
- irefox menu, go to Add-ons and themes > Extensions, toggle off any questionable extensions, click their three-dots menu, and click Remove.
- Open Settings from the Firefox menu, go to Privacy & Security > Clear Data, and click Clear.
- Scroll down to Permissions, click Settings on each permission, and delete from it any questionable sites.
- Go to the Home tab, see if there’s a suspicious URL in the Homepage and new windows field, and delete it.
- Open the browser menu, go to Extensions, click Manage Extensions, and Disable and Remove any rogue items.
- From the browser menu, click Settings > Privacy, searches, and services > Choose what to clear, check all boxes except Passwords, and click Clear now.
- Go to the Cookies and site permissions tab, check each type of permission for permitted rogue sites, and delete them.
- Open the Start, home, and new tabs section, and if there’s a rogue URL under Home button, delete it.
Leave a Comment