Ourtopstories Virus

Ourtopstories

Ourtopstories is a potentially unwanted app that infects the main browser in the system and alters its settings without permission. Some of the Ourtopstories changes will interrupt your browsing experience and could make your system exposed to danger.

The Ourtopstories virus ads, page redirects, and banners may expose you to some serious software hazards

This application can be really obstructive during your browsing sessions, as it will likely change your browser in ways that would make navigating the Internet and finding the information you are looking for quite difficult. Oftentimes, ads will spawn right on top of articles, images, and videos that you might be looking at, thus forcing you to click on the advert just so that it would stop bothering you. Sadly, this will hardly ever work as intended – sure the advert may go away for a while but it will almost certainly reappear soon after. Besides, clicking on browser hijacker ads isn’t something that you are encouraged to do, and there are several reasons for that.

Beware of the ads!

Oftentimes the hijacker ads may be fake, and they may cause redirects to pages with questionable content. It is not excluded that you might end up landing on some phishing page that tries to get you to fill in some personal details such as credit or debit card numbers just so that the people who’ve created it could scam you and steal money from you. Another possibility is that you get redirected to a page that shows you a fake warning about a threat in your computer that, and tells you to purchase some obscure security software that would supposedly fix the problem (which doesn’t even exist). Of course, not all ads related to a browser hijacker such as Ourtopstories are like that, but it is possible that some of them may indeed be unreliable and potentially unsafe.

Another huge problem with hijacker ads, page redirects, and banners is that they may expose you to some serious software hazards – we are talking about infections of the caliber of Ransomware, Spyware, Worms, and Trojans. All of those could cause some very serious issues in your computer, and keeping them away from the system is crucial. However, if you have an app like Ourtopstories or Coding Captcha that is constantly finding ways to redirect you to sites you don’t want to visit, the chances of landing some harmful virus on your computer greatly increase. That is why you must quickly find a way to rid your system of the annoying browser hijacker so that the risk of getting your computer infected is neutralized. Luckily, you’ve found the current page which means that now you have access to a detailed removal guide that will show you exactly how you can uninstall the obtrusive hijacker from your computer.

Avoiding such apps and preventing their installation is easy, but there are several important things you need to remember. Firstly, do not ever open spam emails and ads on obscure sites, or else you can easily land another hijacker. Secondly, be sure to always download new software from reputed sources and not from questionable or illegal file-sharing sites that spread pirated content. Thirdly, always look for the custom installation settings in every program installer, and uncheck the bonus components there, as some of these may be hijackers. Only allow an added component to get installed if you think you might need it and if you trust it.

SUMMARY:

Remove Ourtopstories Virus

To try and remove Ourtopstories quickly you can try this:

1. Go to your browser’s settings and select More Tools (or Add-ons, depending on your browser).
2. Then click on the Extensions tab.
3. Look for the Ourtopstories extension (as well as any other unfamiliar ones).
4. Remove Ourtopstories by clicking on the Trash Bin icon next to its name.
5. Confirm and get rid of Ourtopstories and any other suspicious items.

If this does not work as described please follow our more detailed Ourtopstories 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 will likely require you to exit the page. Bookmark it for later reference.

Reboot in Safe Mode (use this guide if you don’t know how to do it).

WARNING! READ CAREFULLY BEFORE PROCEEDING!

Press CTRL + SHIFT + ESC at the same time and go to the Processes Tab (the “Details” Tab on Win 8 and 10). Try to determine which processes are dangerous. 

Right click on each of them and select Open File Location. Then scan the files with our free online virus scanner:

Each file will be scanned with up to 64 antivirus programs to ensure maximum accuracy

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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.

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After you open their folder, end the processes that are infected, then delete their folders. 

Note: If you are sure something is part of the infection – delete it, even if the scanner doesn’t flag it. No anti-virus program can detect all infections. 

Hold together the Start Key and R. Type appwiz.cpl –> OK.

You are now in the Control Panel. Look for suspicious entries. Uninstall it/them.

Type msconfig in the search field and hit enter. A window will pop-up:

Startup —> Uncheck entries that have “Unknown” as Manufacturer or otherwise look suspicious.

Hold the Start Key and R –  copy + paste the following and click OK:

notepad %windir%/system32/Drivers/etc/hosts

A new file will open. If you are hacked, there will be a bunch of other IPs connected to you at the bottom. Look at the image below:

If there are suspicious IPs below “Localhost” – write to us in the comments.

Open the start menu and search for Network Connections (On Windows 10 you just write it after clicking the Windows button), press enter.

1. Right-click on the Network Adapter you are using —> Properties —> Internet Protocol Version 4 (ICP/IP), click  Properties.
2. The DNS line should be set to Obtain DNS server automatically. If it is not, set it yourself.
3. Click on Advanced —> the DNS tab. Remove everything here (if there is something) —> OK.

• After you complete this step, the threat will be gone from your browsers. Finish the next step as well or it may reappear on a system reboot.

Right click on the browser’s shortcut —> Properties.

NOTE: We are showing Google Chrome, but you can do this for Firefox and IE (or Edge).

Properties —–> Shortcut. In Target, remove everything after .exe.

  Remove Ourtopstories from Internet Explorer:

Open IE, click   —–> Manage Add-ons.

Find the threat —> Disable. Go to  —–> Internet Options —> change the URL to whatever you use (if hijacked) —> Apply.

 Remove Ourtopstories from Firefox:

Open Firefox, click    ——-> Add-ons —-> Extensions.

Remove Ourtopstories from Chrome:

Close Chrome. Navigate to:

 C:/Users/!!!!USER NAME!!!!/AppData/Local/Google/Chrome/User Data. There is a Folder called “Default” inside:

Rename it to Backup Default. Restart Chrome.

Type Regedit in the windows search field and press Enter.

Inside, press CTRL and F together and type the threat’s Name. Right click and delete any entries you find with a similar name. If they don’t show up this way, go manually to these directories and delete/uninstall them:

• HKEY_CURRENT_USER—-Software—–Random Directory. It could be any one of them – ask us if you can’t discern which ones are malicious.
  HKEY_CURRENT_USER—-Software—Microsoft—-Windows—CurrentVersion—Run– Random
  HKEY_CURRENT_USER—-Software—Microsoft—Internet Explorer—-Main—- Random

If the guide doesn’t help, download the anti-virus program we recommended or try our free online virus scanner. Also, you can always ask us in the comments for help!