Captcha Glow Virus

Browser Hijacker
by Violet George
December 14, 2022

Captcha Glow

Captcha Glow falls into the software category of so-called browser hijackers. Software like Captcha Glow ‘hijacks’ its host browsers by altering their settings without obtaining the end user’s permission.

Captcha Glow

Or at least that permission isn’t obtained in a way that the user is made explicitly aware of what they’re agreeing to. Now as for the changes that programs like Captcha Glow may enforce on your Chrome, Safari, Firefox or other widely used browser, there are plenty.

CaptchaGlow.top

For instance, CaptchaGlow.top may replace your default search engine with a lesser known one. It may also change the homepage of your browser, so that every time you open it – you generate hits for whatever new domain is set to greet you. And if you try to change any of these settings back, which is the standard first reaction, you will find that it just doesn’t work.

The minute you restart your browsing session, all the changes imposed by Captcha Glow are back in place and there’s nothing you can do about it. Well, there is something.

Captcha Glow Top

That something is the removal of Captcha Glow Top altogether. Yes, the only way you can take control back of your Chrome or whatever other browsing app you have is by deleting the Captcha Glow Top hijacker from your computer.

And since the developers of such software tend to make this rather difficult for users, we have designed a special removal guide to help you out. It’s located just below this post and available to use free of charge. Just be sure to read the rest of this article, some of the information here may prove useful in the future.

SUMMARY:

NameCaptcha Glow
TypeBrowser Hijacker
Detection Tool

Please follow all the steps below in order to remove Captcha Glow!

How to remove Captcha Glow

  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 Captcha Glow in the programs list that would show up.
  3. Select Captcha Glow 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 Captcha Glow.
  • If you find any of the programs suspicious then uninstall them if they turn out to be linked to Captcha Glow.
  • 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 Captcha Glow 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 Captcha Glow 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 Captcha Glow 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 Captcha Glow 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 Captcha Glow extension
  4. Get rid of Captcha Glow 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 “Captcha Glow” or another unwanted app, change it to an address that you’d want to be the browser’s new-tab page.

How to Delete Captcha Glow

  1. Open task manager
  2. Look for the Captcha Glow process
  3. Select it and click on End task
  4. Open the file location to delete Captcha Glow
  • 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 “Captcha Glow” 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
    This scanner is free and will always remain free for our website's users.
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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 Captcha Glow

    1. Click on the home button
    2. Search for Startup Apps
    3. Look for Captcha Glow in there
    4. Uninstall Captcha Glow from Startup Apps by turning it off
    • Now you need to carefully search for and uninstall any Captcha Glow-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 Captcha Glow 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

    What Captcha Glow do?

    Hijackers are a type of browser add-on that is designed to do little else than generate revenue for its creators. This is done with the help of paid banners, popups and various other ads that usually earn profit based on the number of times they’ve been viewed or clicked on by users.
    And due to this way of making money, the ads and page redirects of such applications tend to be quite aggressive. And that, in turn, is why most people prefer to do away with the pesky software responsible for them.


    Is Captcha Glow dangerous?

    But what’s less obvious is the fact that browser hijackers like Captcha Glow and Vivid Captcha also run a bunch of processes in the background. Constantly. And that consumes a lot of your computer’s resources, which may lead to worse performance quality and issues in your system. Not to mention that some of these processes involve tracking your browsing activities for targeted ad campaigns.
    But in addition to that, quite often the type of websites and pages that browser hijackers are associated with aren’t generally too reliable or even safe. So there’s always the risk of running into malware or viruses because of this, even scary ones like Trojans and ransomware. And in order to prevent anything like this from happening, it’s good to try and abstain from interacting with any of the online ads you see on your screen. But it’s even better to just get rid of their source – in this case Captcha Glow.


    About the author

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    Violet George

    Violet is an active writer with a passion for all things cyber security. She enjoys helping victims of computer virus infections remove them and successfully deal with the aftermath of the attacks. But most importantly, Violet makes it her priority to spend time educating people on privacy issues and maintaining the safety of their computers. It is her firm belief that by spreading this information, she can empower web users to effectively protect their personal data and their devices from hackers and cybercriminals.

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