LuckyWheel Virus

Browser Hijacker
by Violet George
May 9, 2023

LuckyWheel

If an application called LuckyWheel gets attached to your main browser (e.g. Firefox, Chrome), you most probably won’t be able to use it normally. The reason is LuckyWheel may start to flood your screen with various sponsored adverts (in the form of pop-up ads, banners, colorful boxes and sponsored links) and to redirect your searches to predefined sponsored websites.

LuckyWheel

The LuckyWheel Virus

In addition to that, the LuckyWheel virus may change the default homepage or the preferred search engine to some new one and install some shortcut buttons and toolbars that lead to ad-related web locations. For this reason, the security experts consider the LuckyWheel virus a representative of the adware category.

However, adwares and browser hijackers are a type of software that is not malicious and cannot be held responsible for criminal activities similar to those that threats like ransomware, spyware or Trojans can initiate. Yet its presence in the system may affect popular browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Edge and others and create a lot of irritation and browsing disturbance as well as lead to some annoying performance issues such as screen freezing, browser unresponsiveness, and sudden crashes during your browsing sessions. That’s why, in most cases, it is advisable to remove the browser hijacker and uninstall its changes in order to save yourself from its potential disturbance.

SUMMARY:

NameLuckyWheel
TypeAdware/Browser Hijacker
Danger LevelMedium (nowhere near threats like Ransomware, but still a security risk)
Detection Tool

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

How to remove LuckyWheel

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

How to Delete LuckyWheel

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

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

    If an application like LuckyWheel is left to operate in your system for long, it will most probably turn your main browser into a platform for streaming aggressive online advertising messages. And while the general idea of LuckyWheel is simply to redirect you to specific sites that promote certain products, services or software, you may have a hard time reaching the pages that you are actually interested in without being constantly disturbed by hundreds of pop-up banners, links, page redirects, and blinking boxes.


    Is LuckyWeel a virus?

    Clicking on everything that the adware and browser hijacker may generate may also be related to certain risks. For instance, you can never be sure about the origins of the ads and the sites such software may redirect you to (Appyrinceaskeda, Altruistics) and the chances of getting exposed to security hazards, misleading messages or real malware transmitters is not to be neglected. Moreover, there are plenty of nasty infections, including Trojans, rootkits and ransomware viruses that use malvertising as a main distribution method and if you accidentally land on some of their transmitters due to the aggressive ads streaming that is happening on your screen, you will definitely be endangering your entire system.


    Is LuckyWeel dangerous?

    Of course, the goal of the people behind applications like LuckyWheel isn’t to infect you with viruses but to simply earn money from your clicks on the basis of popular remuneration models such as Pay Per Click and Pay Per View. Still, in case that the browser hijacker or adware is causing you disturbance, you have more then enough of a reason to uninstall the invasive app. In fact, in the removal guide below, you can find detailed instructions on how to do that. If this is your first time dealing with such software, it is a good idea to use the professional removal tool for additional assistance and run a full system scan for other potentially unwanted applications.


    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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