*Source of claim SH can remove it.
Cleardating
Cleardating is a browser hijacker app that can install in popular browsers like Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox and change their settings without the user’s approval. Cleardating is deemed unwanted software because it spams the browser with ads and triggers sudden page redirects.
All Internet users are familiar with the annoyance brought on by the various forms of online advertisements we get exposed to each day. Cleardating is simply a tool for generating Pay-Per-Click ads through which its creators are able to earn money. Cleardating needs to hijack the browser’s settings in order to flood the browser with its ads, which is why it’s categorized as a browser hijacker. The use of Pay-Per-Click ads (ads that make money based on how many clicks they get from users) is a common practice nowadays and there are even legitimate sites and apps that employ it to generate extra income for their developers. However, if the ads are too much and/or too aggressive and obtrusive, the app showing it is regarded as potentially unwanted. Cleardating is a potentially unwanted app because the ads it shows in the user’s browser are known to make surfing the Internet rather difficult and frustrating. Also, Cleardating has been reported to automatically redirect users to sites with more aggressive ads. Considering all this, it’s easy to see why someone may not want to have this app in their browser. Cleardating is a software mainly focused on displaying ads in order to profit its creators without really offering the user anything useful. Cleardating is, therefore, both unneeded and unwanted in the computers it’s installed and people normally want to remove it. If that is why you are here too, know that we can lend you a hand with this hijacker’s uninstallation.
The Cleardating.top virus
If intrusive pop-up ads are preventing you from browsing the web normally, you may have the Cleardating.top virus in your browser. The Cleardating.top virus is an app that takes over the affected browser and begins to spam it with ads, page-redirects, and banners.
SUMMARY:
*Source of claim SH can remove it.
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
Please follow all the steps below in order to remove Cleardating!
How to remove Cleardating
- First, click the Start Menu on your Windows PC.
- Type Programs and Settings in the Start Menu, click the first item, and find Cleardating in the programs list that would show up.
- Select Cleardating from the list and click on Uninstall.
- Follow the steps in the removal wizard.
Read more…
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 Cleardating.
- If you find any of the programs suspicious then uninstall them if they turn out to be linked to Cleardating.
- 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 Cleardating from Chrome
- Click on the three dots in the right upper corner
- Go to more tools
- Now select extensions
- Remove the Cleardating extension
Read more…
- 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 Cleardating 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 Cleardating on FF/Edge/etc.
- Open the browser and select the menu icon.
- From the menu, click on the Add-ons button.
- Look for the Cleardating extension
- Get rid of Cleardating by removing it from extensions
Read more…
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 “Cleardating” or another unwanted app, change it to an address that you’d want to be the browser’s new-tab page.
How to Delete Cleardating
- Open task manager
- Look for the Cleardating process
- Select it and click on End task
- Open the file location to delete Cleardating
Read more…
- 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 “Cleardating” 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 accuracyThis scanner is free and will always remain free for our website's users.This file is not matched with any known malware in the database. You can either do a full real-time scan of the file or skip it to upload a new file. Doing a full scan with 64 antivirus programs can take up to 3-4 minutes per file.
Drag and Drop File Here To Scan
Analyzing 0 sEach file will be scanned with up to 64 antivirus programs to ensure maximum accuracyThis scanner is based on VirusTotal's API. By submitting data to it, you agree to their Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, and to the sharing of your sample submission with the security community. Please do not submit files with personal information if you do not want them to be shared. - 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 Cleardating
- Click on the home button
- Search for Startup Apps
- Look for Cleardating in there
- Uninstall Cleardating from Startup Apps by turning it off
Read more…
- Now you need to carefully search for and uninstall any Cleardating-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 Cleardating 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 is Cleardating?
In addition, most browser hijackers modify some aspects of the browser and maybe even make changes in the OS in order to allow themselves to advertise on your screen without getting interrupted. Cleardating, for instance, might try to replace the search engine of the browser in order to alter the search results you get in favor of some advertised sites instead of showing you the most relevant entries. The homepage of the browser will also probably get change in order to boost the traffic to the site that’s now your new homepage. Chrome, Safari, and Firefox are some of the browsers that get commonly affected by hijackers.
Normally, most popular browsers such as the ones mentioned above have some form of anti-hijacker and anti-adware protection but the creators of apps like Cleardating have their ways of tricking the users into giving their Admin permission for the hijacker’s installation. In many instances, such apps are placed inside file-bundles – software installers that come with extra components include in them. The user normally only wants to install the main program from the installer, but if they forget to uncheck the optional bonus elements they’d get them installed as well. The browser hijackers are often distributed as such bonus elements and if you don’t’ pay enough attention to the installation wizards of programs you are about to install, it is highly likely to land a hijacker in the future. File-bundling, however, is only one of the many methods used to spread apps like Cleardating, Captcha Fair and Captchafair. Spam messages, misleading adverts, fake update requests (and sometimes even legitimate update requests) can all be used for hijacker distribution. Even if you are extremely careful and vigilant, you may still land a hijacker like Cleardating without knowing how it has happened. The good news is that it isn’t too difficult to remove such an app if you know what you are doing or if you have access to a reliable removal guide or anti-malware tool. Both of those are available right below this article and we advise you to scroll down to them once you finish reading here if you need to learn how to remove Cleardating.
Even though this app is far less problematic than a Ransomware virus or a Trojan Horse, we still encourage you to uninstall it because some of its ads could be unsafe and may lead you to sites that have threats like the aforementioned Trojans and Ransomware on their pages.
Leave a Comment X