How to remove Adware.AdPeak adware [Virus removal guide]

The Adware.AdPeak also known as PUP.Optional.Adpeak and Adware:Win32/Adpeak is an undesired software from the ‘ad-supported’ software (also known as adware) family. It’s created to fill the web browser’s constant stream of advertisements, or redirect the FF, Chrome, Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer to not expected and intrusive advertising web sites. The Adware.AdPeak is developed in order to provide third-party advertisements to the user without asking his permission. The adware takes control of all your typical browsers and redirects them to unwanted pages every time you surf the Web.

It is probably that you might be worried with the Adware.AdPeak which cause undesired pop up ads to appear. You should not disregard this unwanted software. The adware might not only show undesired advertisements, but reroute your web browser to misleading web-sites. What is more, the adware can analyze your browsing, and gain access to your privacy data and, later, can transfer it to third parties. Thus, there are more than enough reasons to delete Adware.AdPeak ad-supported software from your computer.

Most often, the ad-supported software affects the most common browsers such as the Chrome, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Edge and FF. But such the harmful software as well may infect another internet browsers by modifying its shortcuts (adding an argument like ‘http://site.address’ into Target field of a web browser’s shortcut file). So every time you launch the browser, it’ll redirect to the undesired ads created by Adware.AdPeak. Even if you setup a new start page, an unwanted site will be the first thing you see when you launch the Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge.

Instructions which is shown below, will help you to clean your personal computer from the ad supported software as well as remove Adware.AdPeak unwanted advertisements from the Mozilla Firefox, Chrome, MS Edge and Microsoft Internet Explorer and other internet browsers.

Remove Adware.AdPeak (removal tutorial)

As with removing adware, malicious software or PUPs, there are few steps you may do. We advise trying them all. If you do only one part of the guide, then it should be run malware removal tool, because it should remove ‘ad supported’ software and stop any further infection. But to completely remove Adware.AdPeak you will have to at least reset your web-browser settings such as search provider by default, start page and new tab page to default state, disinfect PC system’s internet browsers shortcuts, delete all unwanted and suspicious programs, and remove ad-supported software with malicious software removal utilities. Read it once, after doing so, please print this page as you may need to exit your browser or restart your PC.

If you are using an Apple computer running Mac OS, then use the following step-by-step instructions How to delete browser hijacker, pop-ups, advertisements from Mac

To remove Adware.AdPeak, complete the following steps:

Get rid of Adware.AdPeak adware without any utilities
Scan your personal computer and delete Adware.AdPeak with free tools
How to stay safe online
How was adware installed on system
Finish words

Get rid of Adware.AdPeak adware without any utilities

The guidance will help you remove Adware.AdPeak ad-supported software. These Adware.AdPeak removal steps work for the Mozilla Firefox, MS Edge, Chrome and IE, as well as every version of Microsoft Windows operating system.

Uninstalling the Adware.AdPeak, check the list of installed applications first

We recommend that you begin the personal computer cleaning procedure by checking the list of installed programs and remove all unknown or questionable apps. This is a very important step, as mentioned above, very often the harmful software such as adware and browser hijacker infections may be bundled with free programs. Delete the unwanted software can get rid of the unwanted ads or browser redirect.

Press Windows button , then click Search . Type “Control panel”and press Enter. If you using Windows XP or Windows 7, then click “Start” and select “Control Panel”. It will display the Windows Control Panel as displayed in the following example.

Further, press “Uninstall a program”
It will open a list of all software installed on your PC system. Scroll through the all list, and uninstall any dubious and unknown programs.

Get rid of unwanted Scheduled Tasks

Once installed, the Adware.AdPeak can add a task in to the Windows Task Scheduler Library. Due to this, every time when you boot your computer, it will show various annoying ads. So, you need to check the Task Scheduler Library and remove all harmful tasks that have been created by adware.

Press Windows and R keys on the keyboard together. This opens a dialog box that called Run. In the text field, type “taskschd.msc” (without the quotes) and click OK. Task Scheduler window opens. In the left-hand side, press “Task Scheduler Library”, as shown below.

Task scheduler

In the middle part you will see a list of installed tasks. Please choose the first task, its properties will be show just below automatically. Next, click the Actions tab. Pay attention to that it launches on your PC. Found something like “explorer.exe http://site.address” or “chrome.exe http://site.address”, then remove this malicious task. If you are not sure that executes the task, check it through a search engine. If it’s a component of the malicious applications, then this task also should be removed.

Having defined the task that you want to remove, then press on it with the right mouse button and select Delete like below.

Delete a task

Repeat this step, if you have found a few tasks that have been created by the Adware.AdPeak. Once is finished, close the Task Scheduler window.

Remove Adware.AdPeak from Chrome

If your Google Chrome web-browser is redirected to ads powered by Adware.AdPeak, it may be necessary to completely reset your web browser application to its default settings.

First, start the Google Chrome and press the Menu icon (icon in the form of three dots).
It will display the Chrome main menu. Select More Tools, then click Extensions.
You will see the list of installed extensions. If the list has the extension labeled with “Installed by enterprise policy” or “Installed by your administrator”, then complete the following instructions: Remove Chrome extensions installed by enterprise policy.
Now open the Chrome menu once again, press the “Settings” menu.
Next, click “Advanced” link, which located at the bottom of the Settings page.
On the bottom of the “Advanced settings” page, click the “Reset settings to their original defaults” button.
The Chrome will open the reset settings dialog box as shown on the screen above.
Confirm the web-browser’s reset by clicking on the “Reset” button.
To learn more, read the post How to reset Google Chrome settings to default.

Remove Adware.AdPeak from Microsoft Internet Explorer

If you find that IE web browser settings such as home page, default search provider and newtab page having been changed by Adware.AdPeak adware which designed to redirect your web-browser to various ad web pages, then you may return your settings, via the reset web browser procedure.

First, launch the Internet Explorer, click ) button. Next, press “Internet Options” as displayed on the image below.

In the “Internet Options” screen select the Advanced tab. Next, press Reset button. The Internet Explorer will display the Reset Internet Explorer settings dialog box. Select the “Delete personal settings” check box and click Reset button.

You will now need to reboot your computer for the changes to take effect. It will get rid of Adware.AdPeak ‘ad supported’ software that causes multiple unwanted ads and pop ups, disable malicious and ad-supported internet browser’s extensions and restore the Internet Explorer’s settings like search engine by default, newtab page and home page to default state.

Get rid of Adware.AdPeak ‘ad supported’ software from FF

The Firefox reset will keep your personal information like bookmarks, passwords, web form auto-fill data, recover preferences and security settings, remove redirects to annoying Adware.AdPeak ads.

Run the 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 display the slide-out menu.

Select the “Troubleshooting information”. If you are 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 Firefox will start a process to fix your problems that caused by the Adware.AdPeak adware which redirects your browser to unwanted ad web sites. After, it is done, press the “Finish” button.

Fix web-browser shortcuts, altered by ‘ad supported’ software

The Adware.AdPeak adware that cause intrusive popup advertisements to appear, can hijack various Windows shortcuts on your desktop (most often, all browsers shortcut files), so in this step you need to check and clean them by removing the argument such as http://site.address/.

Click the right mouse button to a desktop shortcut file which you use to open your web-browser. Next, choose the “Properties” option. Important: necessary to click on the desktop shortcut for the browser which is re-directed to intrusive web-pages.

Further, necessary to look at the text which is written in the “Target” field. The Adware.AdPeak ad supported software that causes a large number of unwanted pop-ups can modify the contents of this field, which describes the file to be start when you run your web-browser. Depending on the web-browser you are using, there should be:

Google Chrome: chrome.exe
Opera: opera.exe
Firefox: firefox.exe
Internet Explorer: iexplore.exe

If you’re seeing an unknown text such as “http://site.addres” which has been added here, then you should remove it, as shown on the image below.

Next, press the “OK” button to save the changes. Now, when you run the web browser from this desktop shortcut, it does not occur automatically redirect on the Adware.AdPeak ads or any other undesired web-sites. Once the step is done, we recommend to go to the next step.

Scan your personal computer and delete Adware.AdPeak with free tools

There are not many good free antimalware programs with high detection ratio. The effectiveness of malicious software removal utilities depends on various factors, mostly on how often their virus/malware signatures DB are updated in order to effectively detect modern malware, adware, browser hijackers and other PUPs. We recommend to run several programs, not just one. These applications which listed below will help you remove all components of the adware from your disk and Windows registry and thereby remove Adware.AdPeak ad-supported software.

How to remove Adware.AdPeak with Zemana Anti-malware

Zemana Anti-malware highly recommended, because it can search for security threats such adware and ad-supported softwares that most ‘classic’ antivirus apps fail to pick up on. Moreover, if you have any Adware.AdPeak removal problems which cannot be fixed by this tool automatically, then Zemana Anti-malware provides 24X7 online assistance from the highly experienced support staff.

Visit the following page to download the latest version of Zemana AntiMalware (ZAM) for MS Windows. Save it to your Desktop so that you can access the file easily.

Zemana AntiMalware
164031 downloads
Author: Zemana Ltd
Category: Security tools
Update: July 16, 2019
After the download is finished, close all software and windows on your computer. Open a folder in which you saved it. Double-click on the icon that’s named Zemana.AntiMalware.Setup.
Further, click Next button and follow the prompts.
Once installation is finished, click the “Scan” button . Zemana utility will start scanning the whole computer to find out Adware.AdPeak which redirects your web-browser to intrusive ad web-sites. This task can take quite a while, so please be patient.
When Zemana Free completes the scan, Zemana Anti Malware will show a scan report. All detected threats will be marked. You can delete them all by simply click “Next”. After that process is complete, you may be prompted to reboot your system.

Run Malwarebytes to remove Adware.AdPeak ad-supported software

We advise using the Malwarebytes Free that are completely clean your personal computer of the adware. The free utility is an advanced malware removal program created by (c) Malwarebytes lab. This application uses the world’s most popular antimalware technology. It is able to help you remove annoying Adware.AdPeak from Windows 10 (8, 7, XP), potentially unwanted applications, malicious software, browser hijacker infections, toolbars, ransomware and other security threats from your system for free.

Click the link below to download MalwareBytes Free. Save it on your Desktop.

Malwarebytes Anti-malware
326383 downloads
Author: Malwarebytes
Category: Security tools
Update: April 15, 2020

After downloading is finished, run it and follow the prompts. Once installed, the MalwareBytes will try to update itself and when this process is done, click the “Scan Now” button to perform a system scan with this utility for the Adware.AdPeak ‘ad supported’ software that causes web-browsers to show intrusive pop-ups. A scan can take anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes, depending on the count of files on your PC system and the speed of your system. When a threat is detected, the number of the security threats will change accordingly. Wait until the the scanning is finished. When you’re ready, press “Quarantine Selected” button.

The MalwareBytes Anti-Malware (MBAM) is a free program that you can use to remove all detected folders, files, services, registry entries and so on. To learn more about this malware removal utility, we suggest you to read and follow the step-by-step tutorial or the video guide below.

Use AdwCleaner to remove Adware.AdPeak from web browser

AdwCleaner is a completely free utility. You don’t need expensive ways to remove Adware.AdPeak that causes unwanted ads and other misleading software. AdwCleaner will uninstall all the unwanted apps such as ad supported software and browser hijacker infections at zero cost.

Visit the page linked below to download the latest version of AdwCleaner for Microsoft Windows. Save it to your Desktop.

AdwCleaner download
225259 downloads
Version: 8.4.1
Author: Xplode, MalwareBytes
Category: Security tools
Update: October 5, 2024
After the downloading process is done, double click the AdwCleaner icon. Once this utility is launched, click “Scan” button to perform a system scan with this utility for the Adware.AdPeak adware that made to redirect your web browser to various ad web sites. This process can take some time, so please be patient. While the AdwCleaner is checking, you can see how many objects it has identified either as being malicious software.
As the scanning ends, you can check all threats detected on your computer. You may move items to Quarantine (all selected by default) by simply click “Clean” button. It will open a prompt, press “OK”.

These few simple steps are shown in detail in the following video guide.

How to stay safe online

Use an ad-blocker utility like AdGuard will protect you from harmful advertisements and content. Moreover, you can find that the AdGuard have an option to protect your privacy and stop phishing and spam web sites. Additionally, ad-blocking apps will help you to avoid unwanted pop-ups and unverified links that also a good way to stay safe online.

Download AdGuard application by clicking on the link below. Save it to your Desktop so that you can access the file easily.

Adguard download
26627 downloads
Version: 6.4
Author: © Adguard
Category: Security tools
Update: November 15, 2018
Once downloading is finished, run the downloaded file. You will see the “Setup Wizard” program window. Follow the prompts.
Once the installation is finished, press “Skip” to close the setup application and use the default settings, or click “Get Started” to see an quick tutorial that will help you get to know AdGuard better.
In most cases, the default settings are enough and you do not need to change anything. Each time, when you start your PC system, AdGuard will launch automatically and stop ads, as well as other harmful or misleading pages. For an overview of all the features of the program, or to change its settings you can simply double-click on the icon named AdGuard, which is located on your desktop.

How was adware installed on system

The majority of adware is bundled within freeware or even paid programs that Net users can easily download online. The installation packages of such apps, most commonly, clearly indicate that they will install additional software. The option is given to users to block the installation of any bundled software. So, in order to avoid the installation of any ad-supported software: read all disclaimers and install screens very carefully, select only Custom or Advanced setup type and uncheck all optional applications in which you are unsure.

Finish words

Now your PC should be clean of the Adware.AdPeak adware which cause undesired advertisements to appear. Remove AdwCleaner. We suggest that you keep AdGuard (to help you block unwanted pop-up ads and intrusive malicious sites) and Zemana Free (to periodically scan your PC for new malware, browser hijackers and adware). Make sure that you have all the Critical Updates recommended for Windows OS. Without regular updates you WILL NOT be protected when new adwares, malicious software and adware are released.

If you are still having problems while trying to get rid of Adware.AdPeak from your web-browser, then ask for help in our Spyware/Malware removal forum.