Video Octopus Malware

Video Octopus

If you can hardly navigate through the webpages you visit in your browser, and you are constantly getting redirected to websites with various advertisements, banners, and pop-ups, then there is a great possibility that you have been infected with a Video Octopus. Video Octopus is generally known for the intrusive and unwanted advertisements it typically displays on your browser, as well as the modifications it apply.

Octopus Video Downloader

Octopus Video Downloader, for instance, may replace your main search engine, and install a new one in the place of the one you used to have. Octopus Video Downloader may also substitute your default homepage for another, sponsored homepage, as well as constantly open new tabs that page-redirect you to it.

What is more, the program may integrate with any browser, be it Chrome, Firefox, Explorer or another popular one.

These are all clear indications of an infection with a browser hijacker such as Humisnee or Me.fo, and we’ll tell you exactly how to clean up your system from this software, and safely uninstall the hijacker in the next lines. For that, we have prepared a special removal guide with an attached professional removal tool. All you need to do is follow closely the steps in the removal guide below, and you will be able to identify, and manually remove all the Video Octopus-associated files, and their traces.

When you’re done, you won’t see all these banners, and nagging ads popping-up anymore, and you’d be able to restore the regular browser settings along with your preferred homepage or search engine. But before scrolling down to the removal guide, it’s essential to get acquainted with the specifics of this kind of programs and the best prevention techniques that would keep such software away from your system in the future.

Can Video Octopus be a virus or malware?

You may easily mistake Video Octopus for a virus, or some malware, when its aggressive page-redirects, and ads start making your web surfing difficult. There is, however, a big difference between a Browser Hijacker, and a true internet threat, such as a computer virus, a Ransomware, a Trojan, a Spyware, or another malicious piece of software. Indeed, you can’t even compare them, as in most cases, programs like Video Octopus cannot cause any direct harm to your machine. Security experts even see them as some of the relatively harmless potentially unwanted applications that you could get, because they can’t damage your files or system.

However, you still have a small chance of bumping into threats such as Trojans, and Ransomware if you let the browser hijacker redirect you to random pages. Moreover, hackers are always figuring out new ways to infect the web users through malvertising, and we should warn you about it. In case a malicious ad sneaks among the dozens of advertisements that are displayed on your screen, and you click on it, you may get introduced to some serious malware, or to an infected website. Therefore, you may want to totally uninstall Video Octopus from your computer if you really want to eliminate this risk. To do this, make sure you follow the instructions below, and in just a few minutes, you will be able to remove the invasive app.

SUMMARY:

Name	Video Octopus
Type	Browser Hijacker
Detection Tool

Remove Video Octopus Malware

The brief instructions that you will find below have reportedly helped some users to remove Video Octopus successfully:

1. With the hijacked browser open, click on the main options and open More Tools (or Add-ons) from the slide down menu.
2. Search for the “Extensions” option and select it.
3. A new window should open where you should see a list of all extensions that are presently part of your browser.
4. First, search for extensions that are linked to Video Octopus in their name and if you find any, click on the Remove/Trash bin button next to their name.
5. Next, search for other extensions that you don’t often use, or you have not installed and don’t want to keep in the browser. Remove these extensions too and then start a new browsing session to check if the problem is resolved.

If you are still experiencing automatic redirects to sites filled with ads, or numerous Video Octopus-powered pop-up ads keep appearing on the screen, we recommend that you use the elaborate guide below and carefully follow the steps in there.

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In the beginning of this manual removal guide, we recommend that you first Bookmark this page with steps on how to remove Video Octopus because will need to get back to it several times during the removal process. What follows next is a system reboot in Safe Mode. If you don’t know how to do that, please click on the link with detailed instructions on how to enter in Safe Mode and complete them. Once the computer restarts, click on the bookmark that you have just save to get back to this removal guide and move on with the instructions in step 2,

WARNING! READ CAREFULLY BEFORE PROCEEDING! A browser hijacker typically attaches to the browsers that are installed on the computer by adding some helper components in them and making alternations to their search engine or homepage settings. Therefore, if you want to remove Video Octopus effectively, you need to repeat the instructions shown below to all browsers that you have on your PC. NOTE: Here we are using Google Chrome for demonstration, but you make sure to repeat the instructions that follow in Firefox, IE (or Edge), or any other browser that you have installed.

Go to the shortcut icon of the browser, right-click it and then select —> Properties.

When the Properties window opens, click —–> Shortcut. Then, go to Target, and delete everything that has been added as a text after .exe and click the OK button at the bottom to apply the changes.

  Remove Video Octopus from Internet Explorer: For removing Video Octopus from Internet Explorer, start the browser, click the gear icon at the top right corner  and open —–> Manage Add-ons.

Take your time to search the add-ons list for any Video Octopus-related entries and Disable them. Then, go back to the gear icon  but this time click on  Internet Options. Check if any changes have been made in the homepage URL and if you notice an address that you don’t want to be your default homepage, —> change the URL and click on —> Apply.  Remove Video Octopus from Firefox: Mozilla Firefox may also be affected by Video Octopus, therefore if you want to check if tor unauthorized changes, click the menu icon   and navigate to Add-ons —-> Extensions. Then, disable and remove any extensions that you think are responsible for your disturbance.

Remove Video Octopus from Chrome: If Chrome is open, make sure you close it down and navigate to: C:/Users/!!!!USER NAME!!!!/AppData/Local/Google/Chrome/User Data.  A Folder named “Default” should be stored inside. Select it and change its name to Backup Default, then Restart the browser.

Once you are done with the browsers in your system, it is time to check a few of the most common system locations where Video Octopus may have added some of its entries without your knowledge. A number of processes related to the page-redirecting and ad-generating activity could be found in the Task Manager. Therefore, use CTRL, SHIFT and ESC key combination from the keyboard to open the Task Manager, and go to the Processes Tab. Once in there, carefully search for processes that could be operated by Video Octopus. When you find a process that is hijacker-related, Right-click on it and select Open File Location.

With the help of the powerful online virus scanner below, scan the files in that location for malware and dangerous code. You can use the drag and drop function to speed up the file-scanning:

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In case danger is found even in one of the files, go to the Processes tab, right-click on the process related to that file and select End Process to stop it from running. After that, go to the file location folder and delete the dangerous file.  Next, use the Windows and R key combination to open Run dialog box in which you need to type appwiz.cpl and click the OK button:

Browser hijackers like Video Octopus may often be installed in the system through program bundling, therefore, it is worth checking if any of the apps that you have installed recently have introduced the hijacker to your PC. If needed, do an online research to find out more information about the apps that look suspicious to you and their installers and, based on the details that you have gathered, decide if they need to be uninstalled.

When you are sure that there are no apps on your computer that are linked to Video Octopus, go to the Start menu and type msconfig in the search bar. Open System Configuration and check the entries in the Startup tab:

If Video Octopus has added Startup items in the list, remove their checkmark and click OK. The Hosts file is another location where the browser hijacker may make changes. To check it for alternations that have been made without your knowledge, use the Windows and R key combination to first open a Run box in which to paste the line below and click OK: notepad %windir%/system32/Drivers/etc/hosts If changes have been made in your Hosts file, you will see them as suspicious-looking IP addresses under Localhost in the text:

In case you detect something dangerous, leave us a comment with a copy of what is disturbing you, and we will check it out and reply.

Next, open Network Connections (you can find it in the Start Menu) and carefully repeat the following instructions:

1. Open the Properties of your default Network Adapter by right-clicking on it.
2. Next, in the new window, select Internet Protocol Version 4 (ICP/IP) and then click the Properties button at the bottom.
3. Make sure that Obtain DNS server address automatically is selected click on the Advanced button at the bottom.
4. Tap on the DNS tab and remove all rogue DNS addresses as shown on image 4. Finally, don’t forget to save all the changes by clicking on OK.

A lot of browser hijackers add entries in the Registry that help them remain in the system. Therefore, if you want to remove Video Octopus successfully, it is worth searching the Registry for hijacker-related entries that need to be removed. This can be done in the following way: Go to the Start menu and type Regedit in the windows search bar. Open the result and when the Registry Editor launches, press CTRL and F together. A Find box will appear on the screen. Write the name of the browser hijacker in it and start a search. If any results are found with that name, they most likely need to be removed. Another way to search the Registry is by manually navigating to the directories below from the panel on the left:

• HKEY_CURRENT_USER—Software—Random Directory
• HKEY_CURRENT_USER—Software—Microsoft—Windows—CurrentVersion—Run—Random Directory
• HKEY_CURRENT_USER—Software—Microsoft—Internet Explorer—Main—Random Directory

If you find files and folders with odd names in there, they most likely may be linked to Video Octopus and need to be deleted. Note! Please make sure you delete only entries that belong to the program you want to remove. Deletions or changes in the Registry that are unrelated to the hijacker may have a negative impact on the stability of your system. If you are unsure that you can correctly identify the Video Octopus-related entries, please use a professional removal tool, like the one listed on this page, to get rid of the hijacker completely. You can also try our free online virus scanner in case the manual instructions in this guide don’t work and share with us any questions or concerns that you may have in the comments below.