There are many types of malicious software and one of them is potentially unwanted program (also known as PUP). The Amazon Assistant is a potentially unwanted program (some IT experts named it as Amazon Assistant virus) have a negative impact on the functioning of your machine. It modifies system settings, tracks your Internet activity, slows down the Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer and MS Edge and the speed of your internet connection. Moreover, it may lead to the fact that sites are slow to load and the browser interface can even freeze.
The potentially unwanted program is not a virus, but the virus behaves similarly. It hides in the system, changes web browser settings and blocks them from changing. Also the “Amazon Assistant virus” can install additional web-browser extensions, addons and modules that will inject ads within the Chrome, IE, Firefox and Microsoft Edge’s screen. Moreover, the PUP may install browser hijacker that once started, will change the internet browser’s home page and search engine. And finally, the Amazon Assistant can collect a wide variety of personal information such as what web-pages you are opening, what you are looking for the Internet and so on. This information, in the future, may be transferred to third parties.
The Amazon Assistant virus usually affects only the Chrome, FF, MS Edge and Internet Explorer by changing the web browser’s settings or installing a harmful extensions (addons). Moreover, possible situations, when any other browsers will be affected too. A potentially unwanted software will perform a scan of the PC for browser shortcuts and modify them without your permission. When it infects the web-browser shortcuts, it will add the argument such as ‘http://site.address’ into Target property. So, each time you open the web browser, you will see an unwanted web-site.
Therefore it’s very important to follow the few simple steps below as soon as possible. The guidance will assist you to remove Amazon Assistant software as well as clean your computer from all unwanted ads. What is more, the step-by-step guidance below will help you remove other harmful software like unwanted toolbars and browser hijackers, that could penetrate into machine along with the potentially unwanted software.
Remove Amazon Assistant from your computer
In the step by step guide below we will have a look at the unwanted software and how to remove Amazon Assistant from Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Edge and Microsoft Internet Explorer web browsers for Windows OS, natively or by using a few free removal utilities. Some of the steps will require you to reboot your computer or close the web-site. So, read this guidance carefully, then bookmark or print it for later reference.
How to manually get rid of Amazon Assistant
Most common PUPs may be uninstalled without any antivirus programs. The manual unwanted software removal is a guide that will teach you how to remove the Amazon Assistant “virus” for free.
Uninstalling the Amazon Assistant, check the list of installed software first
The best way to begin the PC system cleanup is to remove unknown and suspicious applications. 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 programs can clean up the Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Edge from ads hijackers and so on.
Press Windows button 
, then press Search 
. Type “Control panel”and press Enter. If you using Windows XP or Windows 7, then press “Start” and select “Control Panel”. It will open the Windows Control Panel as shown on the screen below.
Further, press “Uninstall a program” 
It will show a list of all programs installed on your PC system. Scroll through the all list, and uninstall Amazon Assistant and any suspicious and unknown programs.
Disinfect the browser’s shortcuts
Once installed, a potentially unwanted software may add an argument similar “http://site.address” into the Target property of the desktop shortcut for the Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Edge. Due to this, every time you run the web browser, it will open an annoying ad page.
To clear the web 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 such as “http://site.address” which has been added here. You need to delete it.
When the text is removed, click the OK button. You need to clean all shortcuts of all your browsers, as they may be infected too.
Remove Amazon Assistant “virus” from Google Chrome
Reset Chrome settings is a simple way to delete the browser hijacker infections, malicious and ‘ad-supported’ extensions, as well as to restore the internet browser’s home page, newtab and search engine by default that have been changed by potentially unwanted software.
- First run the Chrome and click Menu button (small button in the form of three horizontal stripes).
- It will display the Chrome main menu. Select “Settings” option.
- You will see the Google 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 on the image above.
- Next click the “Reset” button.
- Once this task is done, your web browser’s newtab page, homepage and search engine by default will be restored to their original defaults.
- To learn more, read the post How to reset Chrome settings to default.
Remove Amazon Assistant from Internet Explorer
The IE reset is great if your web browser is hijacked or you have unwanted addo-ons or toolbars on your internet browser, which installed by a PUP.
First, open the IE, click 
) button. Next, press “Internet Options” like below.
In the “Internet Options” screen select the Advanced tab. Next, click Reset button. The Internet Explorer will display the Reset Internet Explorer settings prompt. Select the “Delete personal settings” check box and click Reset button.
You will now need to restart your PC for the changes to take effect. It will delete Amazon Assistant, disable malicious and ad-supported browser’s extensions and restore the Internet Explorer’s settings like home page, new tab page and default search engine to default state.
Remove Amazon Assistant from Firefox by resetting internet browser settings
The Mozilla Firefox reset will keep your personal information such as bookmarks, passwords, web form auto-fill data, recover preferences and security settings, remove redirections to intrusive sites and Amazon Assistant extension.
First, launch the Firefox and press 
button. It will display the drop-down menu on the right-part of the internet browser. Further, press the Help button (
) as shown on the image below
.
In the Help menu, select the “Troubleshooting Information” option. Another way to open the “Troubleshooting Information” screen – type “about:support” in the web-browser adress bar and press Enter. It will open the “Troubleshooting Information” page as shown on the screen below. In the upper-right corner of this screen, press the “Refresh Firefox” button.
It will open the confirmation dialog box. Further, click the “Refresh Firefox” button. The Mozilla Firefox will start a process to fix your problems that caused by the potentially unwanted software. Once, it is finished, click the “Finish” button.
Amazon Assistant automatic removal
Manual removal instructions does not always allow to completely remove all unwanted software, as it’s not easy to identify and remove components of PUPs and all malicious files from hard disk. Therefore, it’s recommended that you use free removal tool to completely remove Amazon Assistant off your browser. Several free malware removal utilities are currently available that can be used against the potentially unwanted program. The optimum solution would be to use Zemana Anti-malware, Malwarebytes Free and AdwCleaner.
How to automatically get rid of Amazon Assistant with Zemana Anti-malware
We suggest using the Zemana Anti-malware which are completely clean your PC system of any unwanted software. The tool is an advanced malware removal program designed by (c) Zemana lab. It’s able to help you remove Amazon Assistant “virus”, browser hijackers, malicious software, toolbars, ransomware and ‘ad supported’ software which created to redirect your web-browser to various ad web-sites.
Download Zemana antimalware from the link below.
164113 downloads
Author: Zemana Ltd
Category: Security tools
Update: July 16, 2019
When downloading is complete, run it and follow the prompts. Once installed, the Zemana antimalware will try to update itself and when this procedure is done, click the “Scan” button . This will start scanning the whole PC system to find out Amazon Assistant “virus” and other ‘ad supported’ software that redirects your web-browser to undesired web-sites.
Depending on your computer, the scan can take anywhere from a few minutes to close to an hour. When a malicious software, adware or PUPs are found, the number of the security threats will change accordingly. Review the scan results and then press “Next” button.
The Zemana antimalware will begin removing all detected folders, files, services and registry entries.
Delete Amazon Assistant with Malwarebytes
You can get rid of Amazon Assistant unwanted software automatically with a help of Malwarebytes Free. We suggest this free malicious software removal tool because it may easily get rid of hijackers, adware, PUPs and toolbars with all their components such as files, folders and registry entries.
Download Malwarebytes Free on your machine by clicking on the link below. Save it on your desktop.
326464 downloads
Author: Malwarebytes
Category: Security tools
Update: April 15, 2020
After downloading is finished, close all windows on your computer. Further, open the file named mb3-setup. If the “User Account Control” prompt pops up as shown on the image below, click the “Yes” button.
It will show the “Setup wizard” which will assist you install Malwarebytes on the computer. Follow the prompts and do not make any changes to default settings.
Once install is finished successfully, click Finish button. Then Malwarebytes will automatically start and you can see its main window like below.
Next, press the “Scan Now” button for checking your system for the Amazon Assistant unwanted software and other malware. This task can take quite a while, so please be patient.
When the system scan is done, it’ll open a screen that contains a list of malware that has been detected. When you’re ready, click “Quarantine Selected” button.
The Malwarebytes will begin removing adware and other security threats. Once disinfection is complete, you can be prompted to restart your machine. We recommend you look at the following video, which completely explains the process of using the Malwarebytes to remove adware, adware and other malware.
Delete Amazon Assistant from web-browsers with AdwCleaner
If MalwareBytes anti-malware or Zemana anti malware cannot get rid of Amazon Assistant “virus”, then we recommends to use the AdwCleaner. AdwCleaner is a free removal utility for browser hijackers, PUPs, toolbars and ‘ad supported’ software that causes internet browsers to open undesired advertisements.
- Download AdwCleaner by clicking on the link below.
AdwCleaner download
225301 downloads
Version: 8.4.1
Author: Xplode, MalwareBytes
Category: Security tools
Update: October 5, 2024
- Once the downloading process is complete, double click the AdwCleaner icon. Once this tool is opened, press “Scan” button for scanning your machine for the Amazon Assistant and other unwanted software.
- When the system scan is done, it will open a list of all items detected by this utility. Next, you need to click “Clean” button. It will display a prompt, click “OK”.
These few simple steps are shown in detail in the following video guide.
Stop Amazon Assistant from tracking
It’s important to use ad blocker applications like AdGuard to protect your PC from any unwanted web sites. Most security experts says that it’s okay to stop ads and internet trackers. You should do so just to stay safe!
Download AdGuard program from the following link.
26659 downloads
Version: 6.4
Author: © Adguard
Category: Security tools
Update: November 15, 2018
When downloading is complete, start the downloaded file. You will see the “Setup Wizard” screen as shown on the screen below.
Follow the prompts. When the installation is finished, you will see a window as shown on the screen below.
You can click “Skip” to close the installation application and use the default settings, or press “Get Started” button to see an quick tutorial which will allow 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 launch your system, AdGuard will start automatically and block ads, Amazon Assistant from tracking, as well as other malicious or misleading sites. For an overview of all the features of the program, or to change its settings you can simply double-click on the AdGuard icon, that can be found on your desktop.
Tips to prevent Amazon Assistant and other unwanted software
The potentially unwanted software spreads with a simple but quite effective way. It’s integrated into the installer of various free applications. Thus on the process of installation, it will be installed onto your computer. In order to avoid PUP, you just need to follow a few simple rules: carefully read the Terms of Use and the license, select only a Manual, Custom or Advanced setup mode, which enables you to make sure that the program you want to install, thereby protect your PC from unwanted software such as Amazon Assistant “virus”.
To sum up
Now your machine should be free of the Amazon Assistant unwanted software. Remove AdwCleaner. We suggest that you keep AdGuard (to help you block unwanted ads and undesired harmful web sites) and Zemana Anti-malware (to periodically scan your machine for new hijackers, malware and ‘ad supported’ software). Probably you are running an older version of Java or Adobe Flash Player. This can be a security risk, so download and install the latest version right now.
If you are still having problems while trying to remove Amazon Assistant from the Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Firefox and Microsoft Edge, then ask for help in our Spyware/Malware removal forum.
