Equaffism Virus

Browser Hijacker
by Lidia Howler
April 12, 2023
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Equaffism

Equaffism is a Browser Hijacker best known for the unstoppable amount of adverts it keeps pushing through your browser’s screen. Equaffism can display pop-ups, banners, and adverts of all kinds during every browsing session and redirect you to some sponsored sites.

Equaffism

An infection with Equaffism, a newly reported Browser Hijacker, is the probable reason why you are on this site. If this is the case, there is no need to worry about the safety of your computer. Equaffism is a program that isn’t considered to be a threat to the security of the machine since it operates as an ad-generating and page-redirecting tool. The program is compatible with popular browsers like Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, and typically places some changes in their homepage or in the default search engine with the intention to display sponsored search results. In most instances, Equaffism generates various ads, banner messages, page-redirects, pop-up boxes, and pay-per-click notifications that redirect the web users to specific sites.This is the reason why many people are confused about the nature of this software and why they are looking for effective methods to remove it.

The Equaffism Virus

Equaffism is not a virus, though. Many websites across the internet may make you believe so, but in reality, programs like Equffism are not identical to viruses, and don’t share the malicious capabilities of threats like Ransomware or Trojans.

Equaffism 1

Yet, they are labeled as potentially unwanted because they can be extremely annoying and pose a risk to you and your computer indirectly. That’s why we suggest uninstalling the unnecessary program in order to end its invasive activities. Using the guide below, you can do this even if you are not an very experienced user. But if you need professional assistance, the automatic Equaffism removal tool we’ve included below has your back covered.

SUMMARY:

NameEquaffism
Type Browser Hijacker
Detection Tool

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Please follow all the steps below in order to remove Equaffism!

How to remove Equaffism

  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 Equaffism in the programs list that would show up.
  3. Select Equaffism from the list and click on Uninstall.
  4. Follow the steps in the removal wizard.

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.

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

How to Delete Equaffism

  1. Open task manager
  2. Look for the Equaffism process
  3. Select it and click on End task
  4. Open the file location to delete Equaffism
  • 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 “Equaffism” 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.
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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 Equaffism

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

    As we just said above, Equaffism does not share any of the usual characteristics related to real viruses and malware, but it might still have several features that can open the doors to external security hazards, including Trojans, Spyware, and the notorious Ransomware. For one, most browser hijackers are known for collecting browsing-related information from the web users in order to figure out what the users are interested in. This is not something illegal, as the creators of adverts depend on such information in order to make more appealing ads that can later generate more profit. For that reason, the creators of most browser hijackers set them to monitor the users’ online activity. The only disturbing thing about this is that it is possible to sell all the collected information which may contain details about your web surfing habits to third parties. Unfortunately, who those third parties are, and what they intend to do with the purchased data is something that we will never know.
    Another thing that makes it highly undesirable to have a program like Equaffism, Wigglewurm or Herofherlittl on your computer is the fact that the pop-ups, banners, and box notifications that are shown on your screen may sometimes be illegitimate. If clicked upon, they might potentially take you to malicious websites, compromised by dangerous programs such as the aforementioned Ransomware, which, by the way, is oftentimes nearly impossible to fully deal with.
    That’s a bit of an extreme example, of course, but there’s the chance of accidentally landing such malware if you happen to click on a misleading link or on a fake redirect message. This is also the main reason why we advise the users to refrain from interacting with any of the ads on display, irrespective of how appealing they may be, or to simply remove the browser hijacker that generates them.


    About the author

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    Lidia Howler

    Lidia is a web content creator with years of experience in the cyber-security sector. She helps readers with articles on malware removal and online security. Her strive for simplicity and well-researched information provides users with easy-to-follow It-related tips and step-by-step tutorials.

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