Remove Yow Winner Prize Hijacker

Can’t Remove Yow Winner Prize hijacker virus? This page includes detailed Yow Winner Prize Removal instructions!

The appearance of the Yow Winner Prize website indicates an infection. Somewhere, in the corners of your OS, a nasty hijacker lurks. The parasite sneaks in undetected and wreaks utter havoc. This intruder is an intrusive ad-generating utility. It cannot corrupt your entire system. But, it can definitely cause serious trouble. The Yow Winner Prize hijacker follows instructions to turn you into an easy target. It uses surveillance to determine your preferences and bombards you with relevant ads. In other words: it spies on you and uses the collected data against you. Do not underestimate the situation. The hijacker has no security mechanism. It is often used by cyber-criminals. The crooks use the hijacker to prepare customized ads and to force them on you. These unverified ads, however, could be malicious. An unverified advert may arise unwarranted expectations at best. At worst, it may redirect you to phishing and potentially infected websites. The Yow Winner Prize hijacker has no place on your computer. Do not tolerate it! As soon as you become aware of its presence, take action. Track its lurking spot and hit that delete button. The sooner you clean your computer, the better!

How did I get infected with?

The Yow Winner Prize hijacker is not an ingenious virus. It cannot hack your computer. It uses trickery to invade your machine. The parasite lurks behind rogue applications and fake updates. It hides in software bundles, spam emails, and corrupted links. One click is all it needs to succeed. So, don’t click. Don’t make its job easy. Your caution can prevent such infections. Always do your due diligence. You don’t have a choice. No anti-virus app can protect you if you are reckless and negligent. Pay attention to your actions or you might get into a bigger mess. Download your software from reputable sources. When available, use the Advanced/Custom installation option. Many software developers attach extra apps to the payload files of their programs. Deselect the extras. These unknown apps, more often than not, are parasites like the Yow Winner Prize hijacker. Make sure you know what you are giving the green light to. Read the terms and conditions/end user license agreement (you can use an online EULA analyzer to speed up this step). If you detect anything out of the ordinary, abort the installation. And, of course, be very careful with your inbox. Do not interact with unexpected messages. If you receive such a message, verify the sender. You can simply enter the questionable email address into a search engine. If it was used for shady business, someone might have complained. Do not throw caution to the wind. Even a little extra attention goes a long way!

Why is this dangerous?

The Yow Winner Prize hijacker is like a pain in the neck. The more you tolerate it, the worsts it becomes. It all starts with minor online interference. Yet, in no time, the situation gets out of control. The hijacker gets more and more aggressive with each passing day. It injects dozens of ads on every website you load. It takes over your favorite pages. In-text ads and hyperlinks prevent you from viewing the online content. You can barely use your browser. Every time you as much as touch it, dozens of pop-ups cover your screen. The aggressive advertising takes a toll on your device too. It underperforms and freezes. Even your Internet connection seems slower than before. The Yow Winner Prize hijacker prevents you from using your computer normally. The bad news is that these issues are nothing compared to the things that happen behind your back. The nasty hijacker threatens to steal sensitive information. It’s just a matter of time before it succeeds. The hijacker knows your every online action. It also knows how to use this information against you. It displays irresistible adverts. Yet, when you click, bad things happen. The parasite is very likely to redirect you to scam websites. If you are very unlucky, you may end up on infected pages too. To top it all off, the hijacker promotes phishing websites. The parasite is after your personal and financial details. The more time you grant it on board, the more likely it is to steal them. Do not risk it! Your best course of action is the immediate removal of the hijacker!

How to Remove Yow Winner Prize virus

The Yow Winner Prize 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 Yow Winner Prize 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.

STEP 1: Track down Yow Winner Prize related processes in the computer memory

STEP 2: Locate Yow Winner Prize startup location

STEP 3: Delete Yow Winner Prize traces from Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer

STEP 4: Undo the damage done by the virus

STEP 1: Track down Yow Winner Prize related processes 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 Yow Winner Prize 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 Yow Winner Prize 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 Yow Winner Prize traces from Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer

• Open Google Chrome

• In the Main Menu, select Tools then Extensions
• Remove the Yow Winner Prize 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 Yow Winner Prize

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 Yow Winner Prize, 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 Yow Winner Prize 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 Yow Winner Prize Virus (automatic) Removal Guide

Please, have in mind that once you are infected with a single virus, it compromises your whole system or network 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.