Youareanidiot Virus

Youareanidiot

Youareanidiot is a browser hijacker programmed to interrupt your browsing sessions with sponsored advertisements and page-redirects. In order to do that, Youareanidiot typically modifies the default browser search engine and main homepage and installs some third-party components in their place.

The Youareanidiot virus bombarded with large numbers of online ads such as pop-ups, banners and text links

You have probably experienced a number of changes in your Chrome, Firefox, Edge (or whichever is your main web browser) if your computer has been invaded by Youareanidiot. Usually, the appearance of a new homepage and/or a new search engine are among the first symptoms that give this browser hijacker away. In addition to that, you may also start to experience automatic redirects to random websites when trying to browse the web or may frequently get bombarded with large numbers of online ads such as pop-ups, banners, text links, and box messages on every page that you visit.

Since you are on this site, however, you are most probably looking for a way to permanently remove those ads and uninstall the program that generates them from your computer. And this is where our removal guide comes into play – you can use its instructions to delete the irritating browser hijacker and all of its unwanted browser changes safely and effectively. But before you scroll to the steps below, we recommend you first learn more about what exactly Youareanidiot is doing on your computer and what potential harm it may cause if you don’t remove it. 

The Youareanidiot Virus

Many web users get quite concerned about their computer’s safety when they get faced with a browser hijacker such as Youareanidiot. Fortunately, browser hijackers aren’t the same as viruses or malware. They have no malicious abilities like the ones that threats such as Trojans, Ransomware, and other viruses possess. So, even if  Youareanidiot is on your system, this program is unlikely to corrupt your data, collect confidential or sensitive information from the computer, or spy on you. Despite not being malicious, however, most browser hijacker applications tend to create a lot of browsing disturbance without compensating for it with some helpful functionality. Besides, they often resort to questionable online advertising methods.

For instance, it is possible for a single browser hijacker to redirect user searches to a lot of random pages that pay for traffic and exposure. However, while constantly being routed from one URL to another, the web users could end up landing on questionable websites or  on pages that may have malware infections such as real Ransomware, Trojan Horses or viruses in them. Apart from that, a program such as Youareanidiot or Reverse Captcha could slow down the computer and make the browser sluggish and unresponsive. This can come as a result of the numerous ads that are continuously getting shown on the screen because they need CPU and RAM resources to get displayed. This, in turn, can make your computer “overworked” with unnecessary background processes. For these reasons, most security experts identify browser hijackers as potentially unwanted programs. Besides, there isn’t anyone who wants to deal with system lags or waste their time with unresponsive browsers.

Therefore, it is generally a good idea to uninstall the program that is causing the browsing disturbance and rid yourself of its undesirable activities. And if it turns out that Youareanidiot is that program, we suggest you use the steps in the removal guide below or simply scan your computer with the Youareanidiot removal tool attached to the guide.

SUMMARY:

Remove Youareanidiot Virus

To try and remove Youareanidiot 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 Youareanidiot extension (as well as any other unfamiliar ones).
4. Remove Youareanidiot by clicking on the Trash Bin icon next to its name.
5. Confirm and get rid of Youareanidiot and any other suspicious items.

If this does not work as described please follow our more detailed Youareanidiot 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

This 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.

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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 Youareanidiot 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 Youareanidiot from Firefox:

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

Remove Youareanidiot 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!