Remove Golden Gate Pop-up Ads

Can’t Remove Golden Gate ads? This page includes detailed ads by Golden Gate Removal instructions!

No, we’re not talking about the bridge. We’re talking about the nasty Golden Gate pop-up ads that now cover your PC screen. Unfortunately, you’ve fallen victim to adware. It is generating sponsored commercials on every website you visit. Now, adware is considered to be the most irritating type of virus online. However, it’s also dangerous. The parasite’s shenanigans start as soon as the machine gets infected. That means the sooner you take action, the better. Keep in mind that no cyber pest should be kept, let alone such a sneaky one. Golden Gate is a tricky infection that travels the Web in silence. Once it lands on board, the virus adds a malicious plugin to your browsers. Your own preferences about your own browsers are about as irrelevant as they get. Hackers don’t have a single reason whatsoever to take your opinions into consideration. They are after one much more simple and aggravating goal. Money. Thanks to the pay-per-click mechanism, crooks gain effortless profit. All they have to do is boost the web traffic to some particular websites. Voila. The problem with this scheme is that it exposes you to malware. Don’t even for a minute forget the Golden Gate pop-up ads are sponsored. These commercials do appear to be harmless but you should know better. A sponsored advertisement could be leading you straight to malicious pages filled with infections. You might accidentally download more parasites in the blink of an eye. To prevent that, stay away from anything brought to you by the virus. Chances are, it’s unreliable. Even if there are some harmless pop-ups on your PC screen, there’s no telling which one is real. The only way to find out is by clicking but is this really a risk worth taking? You could worsen your already bad situation. Restrain yourself from clicking the deceptive Golden Gate pop-up ads. Save yourself a headache. The parasite might also install additional toolbars and make further modifications. Obviously, it requires your authorization for none of this. Now that your machine is compromised, you’re no longer in charge. Hackers are. By tolerating this program, you not only end up bombarded with unsafe ads. You also help the parasite’s developers gain dubious profit online. Long story short, this infection has to go.

How did I get infected with?

This nuisance mainly gets spread online in bundles. A rule of thumb is to opt for the Advanced option in the Setup Wizard. Don’t rush the installation process. All kinds of parasites use freeware/shareware bundling as an installation method. That means adware isn’t the only pest you might download. Trojan horses and ransomware roam the Web too. Those two are definitely more aggressive and devastating than the Golden Gate Virus. Check out the Terms and Conditions or EULA. By doing so, you will manage to keep an eye on every single program that lands on your PC. If you skip installation steps, you might jeopardize your security. Deselect any piece of malware that you spot in the bundle and be cautious. Stay away from spam messages/emails as well. That might be one of the oldest tricks in the books but it is effective. Hackers might disguise infections as some legitimate email-attachments which you must not click open. If you do open them, you let the parasite loose. Yes, it’s that simple.

Why is this dangerous?

Adware has many, many tricks up its sleeve. Unless you want to witness its entire malicious potential unleashed, be careful. Uninstall the virus as soon as possible. The Golden Gate pop-ups are caused by this program’s plugin. As mentioned, your browsers get injected with nasty advertisements. This plugin works with Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer. You cannot possibly surf the Internet anymore because your browsers are compromised. They generate highly questionable, dangerous pop-up ads. Do not trust any of them and tackle the virus. Thanks to its never-ending advertisements, you can’t get rid of ads. Those are stubborn, obnoxious, annoying and invasive. This virus also redirects you to bizarre websites thus destroying your online activities. The question is, why hesitate? The Golden Gate Virus gives you plenty of reasons to take measures now. To top it all, this program spies on your browsing-related information. Your sensitive data is now constantly monitored by greedy cyber criminals. That might result in financial frauds and even identity theft. To delete the parasite manually, please follow our detailed removal guide down below.

How to Remove Golden Gate virus

The Golden Gate infection is specifically designed to make money to its creators one way or another. The specialists from various antivirus companies like Bitdefender, Kaspersky, Norton, Avast, ESET, etc. advise that there is no harmless virus.

If you perform exactly the steps below you should be able to remove the Golden Gate infection. Please, follow the procedures in the exact order. Please, consider to print this guide or have another computer at your disposal. You will NOT need any USB sticks or CDs.

WARNING! Stopping the wrong file or deleting the wrong registry key may damage your system irreversibly.
If you are feeling not technical enough just use Spyhunter Professional Malware Removal Tool to deal with the problem!
>>Download SpyHunter – a Professional Remover.

Please, keep in mind that SpyHunter’s scanner tool is free. To remove the Golden Gate infection, you need to purchase its full version.

STEP 1: Track down Golden Gate in the computer memory

STEP 2: Locate Golden Gate startup location

STEP 3: Delete Golden Gate traces from Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer

STEP 4: Undo the damage done by the virus

STEP 1: Track down Golden Gate in the computer memory

• Open your Task Manager by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+ESC keys simultaneously
• Carefully review all processes and stop the suspicious ones.

• Write down the file location for later reference.

Step 2: Locate Golden Gate startup location

Reveal Hidden Files

• Open any folder
• Click on “Organize” button
  
• Choose “Folder and Search Options”
• Select the “View” tab
• Select “Show hidden files and folders” option
• Uncheck “Hide protected operating system files”
• Click “Apply” and “OK” button

Clean Golden Gate virus from the windows registry

• Once the operating system loads press simultaneously the Windows Logo Button and the R key.

• A dialog box should open. Type “Regedit”

• WARNING! be very careful when editing the Microsoft Windows Registry as this may render the system broken.

Depending on your OS (x86 or x64) navigate to:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run] or
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run] or
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run]

• and delete the display Name: [RANDOM]

• Then open your explorer and navigate to: %appdata% folder and delete the malicious executable.

Clean your HOSTS file to avoid unwanted browser redirection

Navigate to %windir%/system32/Drivers/etc/host

If you are hacked, there will be foreign IPs addresses connected to you at the bottom. Take a look below:

STEP 3 : Clean Golden Gate traces from Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer

• Open Google Chrome

• In the Main Menu, select Tools then Extensions
• Remove the Golden Gate by clicking on the little recycle bin
• Reset Google Chrome by Deleting the current user to make sure nothing is left behind

• Open Mozilla Firefox

• Press simultaneously Ctrl+Shift+A
• Disable the unwanted Extension
• Go to Help
• Then Troubleshoot information
• Click on Reset Firefox

• Open Internet Explorer

• On the Upper Right Corner Click on the Gear Icon
• Click on Internet options
• go to Toolbars and Extensions and disable the unknown extensions
• Select the Advanced tab and click on Reset

• Restart Internet Explorer

Step 4: Undo the damage done by Golden Gate

This particular Virus may alter your DNS settings.

Attention! this can break your internet connection. Before you change your DNS settings to use Google Public DNS for Golden Gate, be sure to write down the current server addresses on a piece of paper.

To fix the damage done by the virus you need to do the following.

• Click the Windows Start button to open the Start Menu, type control panel in the search box and select Control Panel in the results displayed above.
• go to Network and Internet
• then Network and Sharing Center
• then Change Adapter Settings
• Right-click on your active internet connection and click properties. Under the Networking tab, find Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4). Left click on it and then click on properties. Both options should be automatic! By default it should be set to “Obtain an IP address automatically” and the second one to “Obtain DNS server address automatically!” If they are not just change them, however if you are part of a domain network you should contact your Domain Administrator to set these settings, otherwise the internet connection will break!!!

You must clean all your browser shortcuts as well. To do that you need to

• Right click on the shortcut of your favorite browser and then select properties.

• in the target field remove Golden Gate argument and then apply the changes.
• Repeat that with the shortcuts of your other browsers.
• Check your scheduled tasks to make sure the virus will not download itself again.

How to Permanently Remove Golden Gate Virus (automatic) Removal Guide

Please, have in mind that once you are infected with a single virus, it compromises your system and let all doors wide open for many other infections. To make sure manual removal is successful, we recommend to use a free scanner of any professional antimalware program to identify possible registry leftovers or temporary files.