If you turn on your computer and your web-browser is launched automatically, after that immediately open the intrusive Playspotz.com web-page or your web-browser began to open a huge number of pop up ads, then most probably your system has become a victim of adware (also known as ‘ad-supported’ software) that usually gets installed as a part of some free programs. Do not be surprised, it happens, especially if you are an active Net user. But this does not mean that you should reconcile with these unwanted redirects and ads. Perform the guide below to clean your PC system ASAP, as the ad supported software can be a way to infect your computer with more dangerous malicious software such as viruses and trojans. The guidance that follow, I’ll show you how to delete adware and thereby delete Playspotz.com unwanted advertisements from your machine forever.
While your PC is infected with the ‘ad supported’ software, the Chrome, Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and MS Edge may be redirected to Playspotz.com annoying web-page. Of course, the ad-supported software may not cause damages to your files or Windows system, but it may open a large amount of unwanted ads. These ads will be injected within the content of web-pages that are you opening in your web browser and can be varied: pop-up ads, in-text ads, different sized banners, offers to install an questionable software.
The malicious software from the ‘ad supported’ software family that modifies the settings of internet browsers usually affects only the Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge. However, possible situations, when any other internet browsers will be affected too. The adware may change the Target property of a web-browser’s shortcut, so every time you open the web browser, instead of your startpage, you will see the unwanted Playspotz.com advertisements.
The guide below explaining steps to get rid of Playspotz.com pop up ads problem. Feel free to use it for removal of the ad supported software that may attack Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge and other popular web-browsers. The step by step tutorial will help you delete ad supported software and thereby clean your web-browser from all intrusive advertisements.
Remove Playspotz.com pop-up ads
There exist several free ad-supported software removal tools. Also it is possible to remove Playspotz.com pop-up advertisements manually. But we recommend to combine all these methods below into the one removal algorithm. Follow the steps of the guide. Some of the steps below will require you to exit the web site. So, please read the steps carefully, after that bookmark or print it for later reference.
How to manually get rid of Playspotz.com
Read this “How to remove” section to know how to manually remove ad supported software that causes intrusive Playspotz.com advertisements. Even if the step-by-step instructions does not work for you, there are several free malware removers below that can easily handle such ad supported software that causes multiple undesired advertisements and pop-ups.
Remove ad supported software through the Microsoft Windows Control Panel
The best way to begin the personal computer cleanup is to delete unknown and suspicious programs. Using the Windows Control Panel you can do this quickly and easily. This step, in spite of its simplicity, should not be ignored, because the removing of unneeded software can clean up the Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, IE and Microsoft Edge from pop-up advertisements hijackers and so on.
Windows 8, 8.1, 10
First, click Windows button
, then press Search 
. Type ‘Control panel’and press Enter as displayed in the following example.
After the ‘Control Panel’ opens, press the ‘Uninstall a program’ link under Programs category as displayed in the figure below.
You will see the ‘Uninstall a program’ panel as displayed on the image below.
Very carefully look around the entire list of software installed on your personal computer. Most likely, one or more of them are responsible for the appearance of popups and browser redirect to the intrusive Playspotz.com web-site. If you have many programs installed, you can help simplify the search of malicious programs by sort the list by date of installation. Once you have found a suspicious, unwanted or unused application, right click to it, after that click ‘Uninstall’.
Windows XP, Vista, 7
First, press ‘Start’ button and select ‘Control Panel’ at right panel like below.
After the Windows ‘Control Panel’ opens, you need to click ‘Uninstall a program’ under ‘Programs’ as displayed in the following example.
You will see a list of programs installed on your personal computer. We recommend to sort the list by date of installation to quickly find the applications that were installed last. Most likely they responsibility for the appearance of popup advertisements and web-browser redirect. If you are in doubt, you can always check the application by doing a search for her name in Google, Yahoo or Bing. After the program which you need to delete is found, simply press on its name, and then click ‘Uninstall’ as shown in the following example.
Delete Playspotz.com pop-ups from Firefox
If the Firefox internet browser application is hijacked, then resetting its settings can help. The Reset feature is available on all modern version of FF. A reset can fix many issues by restoring Firefox settings like home page, newtab and search provider by default to its default state. It will save your personal information like saved passwords, bookmarks, and open tabs.
Launch the Mozilla Firefox and click the menu button (it looks like three stacked lines) at the top right of the browser screen. Next, click the question-mark icon at the bottom of the drop-down menu. It will open the slide-out menu.
Select the “Troubleshooting information”. If you’re unable to access the Help menu, then type “about:support” in your address bar and press Enter. It bring up the “Troubleshooting Information” page as displayed in the following example.
Click the “Refresh Firefox” button at the top right of the Troubleshooting Information page. Select “Refresh Firefox” in the confirmation dialog box. The Mozilla Firefox will start a process to fix your problems that caused by the adware that causes annoying Playspotz.com pop up advertisements. After, it is complete, press the “Finish” button.
Remove Playspotz.com ads from Google Chrome
Reset Chrome settings is a simple way to delete the adware, harmful and adware extensions, as well as to recover the internet browser’s startpage, newtab page and search provider by default that have been replaced by ad-supported software that causes lots of intrusive Playspotz.com advertisements.
- First run the Google Chrome and click Menu button (small button in the form of three horizontal stripes).
- It will open the Chrome main menu. Select “Settings” option.
- You will see the Chrome’s settings page. Scroll down and click “Show advanced settings” link.
- Scroll down again and click the “Reset settings” button.
- The Google Chrome will open the reset profile settings page as shown on the screen above.
- Next click the “Reset” button.
- Once this process is complete, your web-browser’s start page, newtab and search engine by default will be restored to their original defaults.
- To learn more, read the blog post How to reset Google Chrome settings to default.
Delete Playspotz.com advertisements from Microsoft Internet Explorer
In order to recover all web-browser start page, new tab page and default search engine you need to reset the Internet Explorer to the state, which was when the Windows was installed on your computer.
First, open the Internet Explorer. Next, press the button in the form of gear (
). It will open the Tools drop-down menu, press the “Internet Options” as shown in the figure below.
In the “Internet Options” window click on the Advanced tab, then press the Reset button. The Internet Explorer will open the “Reset Internet Explorer settings” window like below. Select the “Delete personal settings” check box, then click “Reset” button.
You will now need to restart your PC system for the changes to take effect.
Remove unwanted Scheduled Tasks
Once installed, the adware can add a task in to the Windows Task Scheduler Library. Due to this, every time when you open your system, it will show Playspotz.com unwanted web page. So, you need to check the Task Scheduler Library and delete all malicious tasks which have been created by ‘ad-supported’ programs.
Press Windows and R keys on the keyboard simultaneously. This opens a dialog box that titled with Run. In the text field, type “taskschd.msc” (without the quotes) and click OK. Task Scheduler window opens. In the left-hand side, click “Task Scheduler Library”, as displayed on the image below.
Task scheduler
In the middle part you will see a list of installed tasks. Please choose the first task, its properties will be open just below automatically. Next, press the Actions tab. Pay attention to that it launches on your computer. Found something like “explorer.exe http://site.address” or “chrome.exe http://site.address”, then remove this harmful task. If you are not sure that executes the task, check it through a search engine. If it is a component of the malicious programs, then this task also should be removed.
Having defined the task that you want to remove, then click on it with the right mouse button and select Delete as shown on the image below.
Delete a task
Repeat this step, if you have found a few tasks that have been created by malicious software. Once is finished, close the Task Scheduler window.
Clean up the web-browsers shortcuts that have been hijacked by adware
Unfortunately, the ad supported software can also hijack Windows shortcuts (mostly, your web browsers shortcuts), so that the Playspotz.com ad web page will be displayed when you open the Google Chrome, Firefox, MS Edge and Microsoft Internet Explorer or another web-browser.
Open the properties of the browser shortcut. Right click on the shortcut of infected browser and choose the “Properties” option and it will display the properties of the shortcut. Next, select the “Shortcut” tab and have a look at the Target field as shown below.
Normally, if the last word in the Target field is chrome.exe, iexplore.exe, firefox.exe. Be sure to pay attention to the extension, should be “exe”! All shortcuts that have been modified by adware like Playspotz.com usually point to .bat, .cmd or .url files instead of .exe as shown in the figure below
Another variant, an address has been added at the end of the line. In this case the Target field looks such as …Application\chrome.exe” http://site.address as shown in the following example.
In order to fix a shortcut, you need to insert right path to the Target field or remove an address (if it has been added at the end). You can use the following information to fix your shortcuts which have been changed by adware.
| Chrome | C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe |
| C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe | |
| Firefox | C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe |
| Internet Explorer | C:\Program Files (x86)\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe |
| C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe | |
| Opera | C:\Program Files (x86)\Opera\launcher.exe |
| C:\Program Files\Opera\launcher.exe |
Once is finished, click OK to save changes. Repeat the step for all internet browsers that are redirected to the Playspotz.com annoying page.
How to automatically remove Playspotz.com pop-up advertisements
Manual removal guidance does not always allow to completely remove the adware, as it is not easy to identify and delete components of adware and all malicious files from hard disk. Therefore, it is recommended that you run malicious software removal tool to completely delete Playspotz.com off your web-browser. Several free malicious software removal tools are currently available that can be used against the adware. The optimum method would be to run Zemana Anti-malware, Malwarebytes Free and AdwCleaner.
Run Zemana Anti-malware to remove Playspotz.com
Zemana Anti-malware is a tool which can delete ad supported software, PUPs, browser hijackers and other malware from your personal computer easily and for free. Zemana Anti-malware is compatible with most antivirus software. It works under Windows (10 – XP, 32 and 64 bit) and uses minimum of computer resources.
- Please download Zemana Anti-Malware on your Windows Desktop by clicking on the link below.
Zemana AntiMalware
164034 downloads
Author: Zemana Ltd
Category: Security tools
Update: July 16, 2019
- At the download page, click on the Download button. Your web browser will display the “Save as” prompt. Please save it onto your Windows desktop.
- When the downloading process is complete, please close all applications and open windows on your PC. Next, launch a file named Zemana.AntiMalware.Setup.
- This will launch the “Setup wizard” of Zemana AntiMalware (ZAM) onto your computer. Follow the prompts and don’t make any changes to default settings.
- When the Setup wizard has finished installing, the Zemana Anti Malware will launch and open the main window.
- Further, click the “Scan” button to perform a system scan for the ad supported software that causes web-browsers to open unwanted Playspotz.com popups. A system scan can take anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes, depending on your PC. While the utility is scanning, you can see number of objects and files has already scanned.
- Once the system scan is done, Zemana Free will open a scan report.
- In order to remove all items, simply click the “Next” button. The tool will get rid of ‘ad supported’ software that causes multiple intrusive advertisements and pop-ups and move threats to the program’s quarantine. Once that process is finished, you may be prompted to reboot the PC.
- Close the Zemana AntiMalware and continue with the next step.
Remove Playspotz.com advertisements with Malwarebytes
We advise using the Malwarebytes Free that are completely clean your machine of the ad-supported software. The free tool is an advanced malicious software removal program created by (c) Malwarebytes lab. This application uses the world’s most popular anti-malware technology. It’s able to help you delete intrusive Playspotz.com popup advertisements from your browsers, PUPs, malicious software, browser hijacker infections, toolbars, ransomware and other security threats from your PC for free.
Download MalwareBytes Free from the link below and save it directly to your Microsoft Windows Desktop.
326387 downloads
Author: Malwarebytes
Category: Security tools
Update: April 15, 2020
After the download is finished, close all programs and windows on your system. Open a directory in which you saved it. Double-click on the icon that’s called mb3-setup as displayed in the figure below.
When the installation starts, you’ll see the “Setup wizard” that will help you setup Malwarebytes on your machine.
Once installation is done, you will see window as on the image below.
Now click the “Scan Now” button .MalwareBytes Anti Malware program will scan through the whole machine for the adware which cause undesired Playspotz.com ads to appear. While the MalwareBytes Free program is scanning, you may see count of objects it has identified as threat.
After MalwareBytes Anti-Malware (MBAM) completes the scan, MalwareBytes Anti Malware (MBAM) will open a list of detected threats. Review the results once the tool has finished the system scan. If you think an entry should not be quarantined, then uncheck it. Otherwise, simply click “Quarantine Selected” button.
The Malwarebytes will now remove ad supported software that causes internet browsers to open intrusive Playspotz.com pop-ups and add items to the Quarantine. Once the process is complete, you may be prompted to reboot your PC.
The following video explains steps on how to delete hijacker, adware and other malicious software with MalwareBytes Anti-Malware.
If the problem with Playspotz.com redirect is still remained
AdwCleaner is a free removal tool that can be downloaded and run to remove adware which causes intrusive Playspotz.com ads, hijacker infections, malicious software, potentially unwanted programs, toolbars and other threats from your PC. You can run this tool to find threats even if you have an antivirus or any other security program.
Download AdwCleaner on your personal computer from the following link.
225263 downloads
Version: 8.4.1
Author: Xplode, MalwareBytes
Category: Security tools
Update: October 5, 2024
Once downloading is finished, open the directory in which you saved it. You will see an icon like below.
Double click the AdwCleaner desktop icon. When the tool is started, you will see a screen as on the image below.
Further, click “Scan” button .AdwCleaner program will scan through the whole system for the ad supported software that causes a ton of annoying Playspotz.com advertisements. This process can take quite a while, so please be patient. When that process is finished, the results are displayed in the scan report as on the image below.
In order to remove all items, simply click “Clean” button. It will open a prompt as shown below.
You need to press “OK”. Once the clean-up is finished, the AdwCleaner may ask you to restart your system. When your computer is started, you will see an AdwCleaner log.
These steps are shown in detail in the following video guide.
Run AdBlocker to block Playspotz.com and stay safe online
We recommend to install an ad-blocking application which can block Playspotz.com and other intrusive web sites. The ad-blocker tool like AdGuard is a application which basically removes advertising from the World Wide Web and blocks access to malicious web sites. Moreover, security experts says that using ad blocking software is necessary to stay safe when surfing the World Wide Web.
Download AdGuard program on your personal computer from the link below.
26627 downloads
Version: 6.4
Author: © Adguard
Category: Security tools
Update: November 15, 2018
Once downloading is finished, launch the downloaded file. You will see the “Setup Wizard” screen as shown below.
Follow the prompts. After the install is finished, you will see a window as shown in the figure below.
You can click “Skip” to close the setup program and use the default settings, or press “Get Started” button to see an quick tutorial that will allow you get to know AdGuard better.
In most cases, the default settings are enough and you don’t need to change anything. Each time, when you start your system, AdGuard will start automatically and stop ads, sites such Playspotz.com, as well as other malicious or misleading web sites. For an overview of all the features of the application, or to change its settings you can simply double-click on the AdGuard icon, which can be found on your desktop.
How did Playspotz.com popups get on your system
The adware come bundled with various free applications, as a supplement, which is installed automatically. This is certainly not an honest way to get installed onto your PC system. To avoid infecting of your computer and side effects in the form of undesired Playspotz.com pop-up ads, you should always carefully read the Terms of Use and the Software license. Additionally, always select Manual, Custom or Advanced install mode. This allows you to disable the installation of unnecessary and often harmful software. Even if you uninstall the free applications from your system, this ad-supported software will not be fully removed. This means that you should manually remove adware which created to redirect your internet browser to various ad sites such as Playspotz.com by follow the guide above.
To sum up
Once you have finished the step by step guide shown above, your personal computer should be free from adware that causes unwanted Playspotz.com pop ups and other malware. The Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer will no longer redirect you to various annoying web-pages such as Playspotz.com. Unfortunately, if the steps does not help you, then you have caught a new adware, and then the best way – ask for help in our Spyware/Malware removal forum.
