The passinist.com site appeared on your PC without any notice? After that, you’re faced with the fact that your internet browser is now redirected to other unwanted web pages and filled with a variety of popup ads and banners. The cause of all your problems with your computer is adware (sometimes called ‘ad-supported’ software) that has been installed on many computers around the world without users permission, so you’re one of many. Most probably, you do not even know how and where this ad-supported software has got into your PC system. In the step-by-step guide below, we will explain all the general features of ‘ad supported’ software and its typical behavior on the computer, as well as effective methods for manually removing it from your system.
The adware usually affects only the Chrome, Firefox, MS Edge and Microsoft Internet Explorer by changing the internet browser’s settings or installing a harmful extensions (addons). Moreover, possible situations, when any other internet browsers will be affected too. The ‘ad supported’ software will perform a scan of the computer for web-browser shortcuts and modify them without your permission. When it infects the web browser shortcuts, it will add the argument like ‘http://site.address’ into Target property. So, each time you launch the web browser, you will see an unwanted passinist.com site.
The ‘ad supported’ software may insert lots of ads directly to the sites that you visit, creating a sense that the ads has been added by the creators of the web page. Moreover, a legal advertisements may be replaced on the fake advertisements, that will offer to download and install various unnecessary and harmful programs. Moreover, the ad supported software has the ability to collect tons of personal information about you (your ip address, what is a web page you are viewing now, what you are looking for on the Net, which links you are clicking), which can later transfer to third parties.
Instructions, which is shown below, will allow you to clean your system from the ‘ad supported’ software as well as remove passinist.com annoying advertisements from the Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Edge and other web-browsers.
How does passinist.com pop-up ads get installed onto PC system
Most often, the adware gets on your computer as a part of various free software, as a bonus. Therefore it is very important at the stage of installing programs downloaded from the Internet carefully review the ‘Terms of use’ and the ‘License agreement’, as well as to always choose the Advanced, Custom or Manual installation mode. In this mode, you can turn off all unwanted add-ons, including an ad-supported software, which can be installed along with the desired program.
How to manually remove passinist.com pop-ups
If you perform exactly the step-by-step instructions below you should be able to remove the passinist.com . Read it once, after doing so, please print this page as you may need to close your web-browser or reboot your PC.
- Remove suspicious and unknown applications by using Windows Control Panel
- Get rid of passinist.com redirect from Mozilla Firefox
- Get rid of passinist.com redirect from Chrome
- Remove passinist.com from Internet Explorer
- Disinfect the browser’s shortcuts to remove passinist.com redirect
- Delete unwanted Scheduled Tasks
Remove suspicious and unknown applications by using Windows Control Panel
Press Windows key 
, 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’ll show the Windows Control Panel as shown on the image below.
Next, click “Uninstall a program” 
It will show a list of all applications. Scroll through the all list and uninstall any suspicious and unknown applications.
Get rid of passinist.com redirect from Mozilla Firefox
First, start the FF. Next, click the button in the form of three horizontal stripes (
). It will open the drop-down menu. Next, press the “Help” button (
).
In the Help menu, click the “Troubleshooting Information”. In the upper-right corner of the “Troubleshooting Information” page, click “Refresh Firefox” button.
Confirm your action, click the “Refresh Firefox”.
Get rid of passinist.com redirect from Chrome
Reset Chrome settings is a easy way to remove the malicious and ad-supported extensions, as well as to restore the web-browser’s startpage, new tab page and default search engine that have been changed by adware.
- Open the Google Chrome, then click the Menu icon (icon in the form of three horizontal stripes).
- It will show the Chrome main menu. Click the “Settings” menu.
- Next, click the “Show advanced settings” link, that located at the bottom of the Settings page.
- Further, click the “Reset settings” button, that located at the bottom of the Advanced settings page.
- The Google Chrome will open the reset settings dialog box as on the image above.
- Confirm the web-browser’s reset by clicking on the “Reset” button.
- To learn more, look the article How to reset Google Chrome settings to default.
Remove passinist.com from Internet Explorer
To get rid of the passinist.com pop-up ads you need to reset the IE to the state, which was when the Windows was installed on your personal computer.
First, launch the Microsoft Internet Explorer, then press ‘gear’ icon 
. It will show the drop-down menu on the right part of the web browser, then click the “Internet Options” like below.
In the “Internet Options” screen, you need to select the “Advanced” tab and click the “Reset” button. The Microsoft Internet Explorer will open the “Reset Internet Explorer settings” prompt like below. Next, click the “Delete personal settings” check box to select it. After that, click the “Reset” button.
Once the task is complete, click “Close” button. Close the Internet Explorer and reboot your personal computer for the changes to take effect. This step will help you to restore your web browser’s settings to default state and disable ‘ad-supported’ extensions.
Disinfect the browser’s shortcuts to remove passinist.com redirect
Once the adware is started, it can also alter the web browser’s shortcuts, adding an argument like “http://site.address” into the Target field. Due to this, every time you start the internet browser, it will be redirected to an annoying ads.
To clear the browser shortcut, right-click to it and select Properties. On the Shortcut tab, locate the Target field. Click inside, you will see a vertical line – arrow pointer, move it (using -> arrow key on your keyboard) to the right as possible. You will see a text that begins with “http://” which has been added here. You need to remove it.
When the argument is removed, press the OK button. You need to clean all shortcuts of all your internet browsers, as they may be infected too.
Delete unwanted Scheduled Tasks
If the unwanted passinist.com page opens automatically on Windows startup or at equal time intervals, then you need to check the Task Scheduler Library and remove all the tasks that have been created by unwanted software.
Press Windows and R keys on the keyboard together. This opens a prompt 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 on the screen below.
Task scheduler
In the middle part you will see a list of installed tasks. Select the first task, its properties will be display just below automatically. Next, click 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 you need get rid of it. If you are not sure that executes the task, check it through a search engine. If it’s a component of the adware, 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 below.
Delete a task
Repeat this step, if you have found a few tasks that have been created by malicious applications. Once is complete, close the Task Scheduler window.
How to remove passinist.com with free malware removal application
Manual removal passinist.com pop-ups requires some computer skills. Some files and registry entries that created by the adware may be not completely removed. We suggest that use the Malwarebytes Free which are completely clean your machine. Moreover, the freeware will help you to get rid of malware, browser hijackers and toolbars that your personal computer may be infected too.
- Please download Malwarebytes to your desktop from the following link.
Malwarebytes Anti-malware
317519 downloads
Author: Malwarebytes
Category: Security tools
Update: April 15, 2020
- At the download page, click the Download button. Your web-browser will open the “Save as” prompt. Please save it onto your desktop.
- Once the download process is finished, please close all software and open windows on your computer. Double-click on the icon that’s named mb3-setup.
- This will start the Setup wizard of Malwarebytes onto your machine. Follow the prompts and do not make any changes to default settings.
- Once the Setup wizard has finished installing, the malware remover will start and open the main window.
- Further, click the “Scan Now” button to perform a system scan for the ad-supported software which redirects your web browser to the passinist.com unwanted web page. This task can take quite a while, so please be patient.
- When it has finished scanning, it will display a screen which contains a list of malicious applications that has been found.
- When you are ready, click on “Quarantine Selected” button to start cleaning your computer. When the process is complete, you may be prompted to restart your personal computer.
- Close the Anti-Malware and continue with the next step.
Video instruction, which reveals in detail the steps above.
Block passinist.com advertisements and other unwanted sites
To increase your security and protect your personal computer against new annoying ads and malicious web sites, you need to use application that stops access to dangerous advertisements and web pages. Moreover, the program can stop the display of intrusive advertising, that also leads to faster loading of web-sites and reduce the consumption of web traffic.
Download AdGuard program from the following link.
25646 downloads
Version: 6.4
Author: © Adguard
Category: Security tools
Update: November 15, 2018
Once downloading is finished, start the file named adguardInstaller. You will see the “Setup Wizard” screen as shown on the image below.
Follow the prompts. Once the installation is finished, you will see a window like below.
You can click “Skip” to close the install application and use the default settings, or press “Get Started” button 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 computer, AdGuard will launch automatically and block ads, web-pages like passinist.com, 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 AdGuard icon, which is located on your Windows desktop.
If the problem with passinist.com ads is still remained
If MalwareBytes cannot get rid of passinist.com pop-up ads, then we suggests to use the AdwCleaner. AdwCleaner is a free removal tool for adware, browser hijackers, PUPs, toolbars.
- Download AdwCleaner from the link below.
AdwCleaner download
220709 downloads
Version: 8.3.2
Author: Xplode, MalwareBytes
Category: Security tools
Update: April 28, 2022
- Double click the AdwCleaner icon. Once the tool is opened the main screen will appear as shown on the image above.
- Now, press the “Scan” button . This will begin scanning the whole computer to find out ad supported software that generates passinist.com ads.
- When it has finished scanning your computer, AdwCleaner will display a scan report. Review the report and then press “Clean” button. It will open a prompt, click “OK” button.
The following video explains the step-by-step guide above on how to remove ad supported software with AdwCleaner.
Finish words
Once you have finished the few simple steps above, your machine should be clean from malware and ad supported software. The Mozilla Firefox, Chrome, Microsoft Internet Explorer and Edge will no longer display passinist.com annoying pop-up ads and redirect you to unknown web pages. Unfortunately, if the guide does not help you, then you have caught a new type of adware, and then the best way – ask for help.
- Download HijackThis from the link below and save it to your Desktop.
HijackThis download
4161 downloads
Version: 2.0.5
Author: OpenSource
Category: Security tools
Update: November 7, 2015
- Double-click on the HijackThis icon. Next press “Do a system scan only” button.
- Once the checking is finished, the scan button will read “Save log”, click it. Save this log to your desktop.
- Create a Myantispyware account here. Once you’ve registered, check your e-mail for a confirmation link, and confirm your account. After that, login.
- Copy and paste the contents of the HijackThis log into your post. If you are posting for the first time, please start a new thread by using the “New Topic” button in the Spyware Removal forum. When posting your HJT log, try to give us some details about your problems, so we can try to help you more accurately.
- Wait for one of our trained “Security Team” or Site Administrator to provide you with knowledgeable assistance tailored to your problem with the unwanted passinist.com pop-up ads.
