How to remove Adware.Agent [Virus removal guide]

The Adware.Agent is an adware (also known as ‘ad-supported’ software). Technically, the Adware.Agent adware is not a virus, it is is made to make a revenue. Once started, the Adware.Agent will inject a small code within the content of pages that you visit. This malicious code may pop-up a new internet browser window or insert undesired ads directly into the web-sites you’re viewing.

The Adware.Agent is the part of the software that is used as an online promotional tool. It is created with the sole purpose to display dozens of popup advertisements, and thus to promote the goods and services in an open browser window. Moreover, the Adware.Agent can substitute the legitimate advertising banners on misleading or even banners that can offer to visit harmful sites. The reason is simple, many advertisers agree on any ways to attract users to their web-pages, so the developers of ad-supported software, often forcing users to click on an advertising link. For each click on a link, the authors of the Adware.Agent receive income.

The Adware.Agent adware usually hijacks only the IE, Chrome, Firefox and Microsoft Edge. However, possible situations, when any other browsers will be infected too. The adware may alter the Target property of a web-browser’s shortcut file, so every time you run the web browser, instead of your start page, you will see an annoying web page.

The guide below explaining steps to delete Adware.Agent problem. Feel free to use it for removal of the adware that may attack MS Edge, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome and other popular web-browsers. The guidance will help you get rid of Adware.Agent and thus clean your browser from all intrusive advertisements.

Remove Adware.Agent (Virus removal)

When the adware gets installed on your machine without your knowledge, it’s not easy to uninstall. Most commonly, there is no Uninstall program which simply uninstall the Adware.Agent which cause intrusive pop up advertisements to appear from your machine. So, we recommend using several well-proven free specialized tools like Zemana Free, MalwareBytes Anti Malware (MBAM) or AdwCleaner. But the best solution to delete Adware.Agent adware will be to perform several manual steps, after that additionally use antimalware utilities.

To remove Adware.Agent, perform the steps below:

1. Get rid of Adware.Agent without any tools
   • Delete suspicious software using MS Windows Control Panel
   • Remove Adware.Agent adware from Chrome
   • Remove Adware.Agent ad supported software from IE
   • Remove Adware.Agent ‘ad supported’ software from Firefox
   • Remove unwanted Scheduled Tasks
   • Clean up the internet browsers shortcuts which have been affected by adware
2. Remove Adware.Agent adware with free software
   • Automatically delete Adware.Agent with Zemana Anti-malware
   • Automatically remove Adware.Agent adware with Malwarebytes
   • Use AdwCleaner to delete Adware.Agent adware from browser
3. How to stay safe online
4. Tips to prevent Adware.Agent ad supported software and other unwanted apps
5. To sum up

Get rid of Adware.Agent without any tools

Read this “How to remove” section to know how to manually remove Adware.Agent ad supported software that designed to reroute your browser to various ad sites. Even if the step-by-step guide does not work for you, there are several free malicious software removers below that can easily handle such Adware.Agent that causes a large amount of annoying pop-up ads.

Delete suspicious software using MS Windows Control Panel

It is of primary importance to first identify and get rid of all PUPs, adware software and hijacker infections through ‘Add/Remove Programs’ (Windows XP) or ‘Uninstall a program’ (Windows 10, 8, 7) section of your MS Windows Control Panel.

Make sure you have closed all browsers and other programs. Press CTRL, ALT, DEL keys together to open the Windows Task Manager.

Click on the “Processes” tab, look for something suspicious that is the Adware.Agent adware then right-click it and select “End Task” or “End Process” option. In many cases, malicious software masks itself to avoid detection by imitating legitimate MS Windows processes. A process is particularly suspicious: it is taking up a lot of memory (despite the fact that you closed all of your programs), its name is not familiar to you (if you are in doubt, you can always check the program by doing a search for its name in Google, Yahoo or Bing).

Next, remove any unknown and suspicious applications from your Control panel.

Windows 10, 8.1, 8

Now, click the Windows button, type “Control panel” in search and press Enter. Select “Programs and Features”, then “Uninstall a program”.

Look around the entire list of applications installed on your system. Most probably, one of them is the Adware.Agent adware that causes multiple annoying ads and popups. Choose the questionable application or the program that name is not familiar to you and uninstall it.

Windows Vista, 7

From the “Start” menu in MS Windows, select “Control Panel”. Under the “Programs” icon, choose “Uninstall a program”.

Select the suspicious or any unknown programs, then click “Uninstall/Change” button to remove this undesired program from your computer.

Windows XP

Click the “Start” button, select “Control Panel” option. Click on “Add/Remove Programs”.

Choose an unwanted program, then click “Change/Remove” button. Follow the prompts.

Remove Adware.Agent adware from Chrome

If your Chrome web-browser is re-directed to unwanted ads, it may be necessary to completely reset your web-browser program to its default settings.

Open the Chrome menu by clicking on the button in the form of three horizontal dotes (). It will display the drop-down menu. Choose More Tools, then click Extensions.

Carefully browse through the list of installed add-ons. If the list has the extension labeled with “Installed by enterprise policy” or “Installed by your administrator”, then complete the following tutorial: Remove Chrome extensions installed by enterprise policy otherwise, just go to the step below.

Open the Google Chrome main menu again, click to “Settings” option.

Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on the “Advanced” link. Now scroll down until the Reset settings section is visible, as shown in the following example and click the “Reset settings to their original defaults” button.

Confirm your action, click the “Reset” button.

Remove Adware.Agent ad supported software from IE

In order to restore all internet browser startpage, newtab and default search engine you need to reset the Internet Explorer to the state, that was when the MS Windows was installed on your PC.

First, launch the Internet Explorer. Next, click the button in the form of gear (). It will display 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 as shown on the image below. Select the “Delete personal settings” check box, then click “Reset” button.

You will now need to reboot your computer for the changes to take effect.

Remove Adware.Agent ‘ad supported’ software from Firefox

The Mozilla Firefox reset will keep your personal information like bookmarks, passwords, web form auto-fill data, restore preferences and security settings, delete redirects to annoying ads.

Press the Menu button (looks like three horizontal lines), and press the blue Help icon located at the bottom of the drop down menu as shown in the figure below.

A small menu will appear, click the “Troubleshooting Information”. On this page, press “Refresh Firefox” button as shown on the screen below.

Follow the onscreen procedure to revert back your Firefox browser settings to its original state.

Remove unwanted Scheduled Tasks

Once installed, the Adware.Agent software can add a task in to the Windows Task Scheduler Library. Due to this, every time when you launch your computer, it will open an unwanted page. 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 at the same time. This displays a dialog box that titled with Run. In the text field, type “taskschd.msc” (without the quotes) and press OK. Task Scheduler window opens. In the left-hand side, press “Task Scheduler Library”, as displayed in the following example.

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 system. If you are not sure that executes the task, check it through a search engine. If it’s a component of the malicious apps, then this task also should be removed.

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

Delete a task

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

Clean up the internet browsers shortcuts which have been affected by adware

The Adware.Agent that redirects your web-browser to annoying ad web-pages, can hijack various Windows shortcuts on your desktop (most often, all internet browsers shortcut files), so in this step you need to check and clean them by removing the argument such as http://site.address/.

Right click on the shortcut of hijacked web-browser as displayed in the following example.

Select the “Properties” option and it will open the shortcut file’s properties. Next, click the “Shortcut” tab and then delete the “http://site.address” string from Target field as displayed below.

Then press OK to save changes. Repeat the step for all internet browsers that are re-directed to an unwanted web site.

Remove Adware.Agent adware with free software

Many antivirus companies have developed programs that help detect adware and thereby get rid of Adware.Agent from the Chrome, IE, Mozilla Firefox and Edge web browsers. Below is a a few of the free programs you may want to run. Your machine may have a lot of PUPs, adware and browser hijackers installed at the same time, so we recommend, if any unwanted or malicious application returns after rebooting the computer, then launch your PC system into Safe Mode and run the anti-malware tool once again.

Automatically delete Adware.Agent with Zemana Anti-malware

Zemana Anti-malware is a tool that can remove adware, potentially unwanted apps, hijackers and other malware from your machine 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.

1. Download Zemana by clicking on the link below. Save it on your Desktop.
   
   

   Zemana AntiMalware
   164117 downloads
   Author: Zemana Ltd
   Category: Security tools
   Update: July 16, 2019
   
2. Once downloading is done, close all software and windows on your PC. Open a file location. Double-click on the icon that’s named Zemana.AntiMalware.Setup.
3. Further, click Next button and follow the prompts.
4. Once installation is complete, press the “Scan” button to find out Adware.Agent which causes intrusive pop up ads. Depending on your machine, the scan can take anywhere from a few minutes to close to an hour. While the Zemana program is scanning, you can see how many objects it has identified as threat.
5. As the scanning ends, Zemana Free will create a list of unwanted and ad supported software apps. You may move items to Quarantine (all selected by default) by simply click “Next”. Once the clean-up is done, you can be prompted to restart your computer.

Automatically remove Adware.Agent adware with Malwarebytes

We recommend using the Malwarebytes Free that are completely clean your system of the ad supported software. The free utility is an advanced malicious software removal program created by (c) Malwarebytes lab. This program uses the world’s most popular anti malware technology. It’s able to help you remove undesired Adware.Agent adware from your browsers, potentially unwanted applications, malware, browser hijacker infections, toolbars, ransomware and other security threats from your PC for free.

Click the link below to download MalwareBytes Anti Malware. Save it on your Microsoft Windows desktop or in any other place.

Malwarebytes Anti-malware
326469 downloads
Author: Malwarebytes
Category: Security tools
Update: April 15, 2020

Once the download is finished, run it and follow the prompts. Once installed, the MalwareBytes AntiMalware will try to update itself and when this process is done, click the “Scan Now” button to perform a system scan with this tool for the Adware.Agent adware that causes internet browsers to show intrusive popup advertisements. A scan can take anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes, depending on the number of files on your system and the speed of your PC system. During the scan MalwareBytes Anti-Malware will scan for threats exist on your system. You may move items to Quarantine (all selected by default) by simply press “Quarantine Selected” button.

The MalwareBytes Anti-Malware is a free program that you can use to get rid of 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 instructions or the video guide below.

Use AdwCleaner to delete Adware.Agent adware from browser

AdwCleaner will help remove Adware.Agent that slow down your PC system. The hijackers, adware and other potentially unwanted software slow your internet browser down and try to trick you into clicking on malicious advertisements and links. AdwCleaner removes any adware and lets you enjoy your computer without Adware.Agent.

1. Visit the following page to download AdwCleaner. Save it directly to your MS Windows Desktop.
   
   

   AdwCleaner download
   225301 downloads
   Version: 8.4.1
   Author: Xplode, MalwareBytes
   Category: Security tools
   Update: October 5, 2024
   
2. Once the downloading process is complete, double click the AdwCleaner icon. Once this tool is launched, click “Scan” button to perform a system scan with this utility for the Adware.Agent adware that cause intrusive popups to appear. This task may take quite a while, so please be patient. When a threat is found, the count of the security threats will change accordingly.
3. After AdwCleaner completes the scan, AdwCleaner will open a list of detected threats. Review the scan results and then click “Clean” button. It will display a prompt, click “OK”.

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

How to stay safe online

Enabling an ad-blocking program such as AdGuard is an effective way to alleviate the risks. Additionally, ad blocking applications will also protect you from harmful advertisements and sites, and, of course, stop redirection chain to malicious, misleading and similar web-sites.

Download AdGuard program by clicking on the link below. Save it on your Windows desktop.

Adguard download
26660 downloads
Version: 6.4
Author: © Adguard
Category: Security tools
Update: November 15, 2018

When downloading is finished, run the downloaded file. You will see the “Setup Wizard” screen as shown in the figure below.

Follow the prompts. After the install is finished, you will see a window as shown in the following example.

You can click “Skip” to close the installation program and use the default settings, or press “Get Started” button to see an quick tutorial which will help 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 run your computer, AdGuard will launch automatically and block popups, as well as other malicious or misleading web-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 is located on your desktop.

Tips to prevent Adware.Agent ad supported software and other unwanted apps

The majority of adware come bundled with free programs or even paid programs that Net users can easily download online. The setup packages of such software, in many cases, clearly show that they will install bundled programs. The option is given to users to stop the setup of any additional applications. So, in order to avoid the setup of any ad-supported software: read all disclaimers and install screens very carefully, choose only Custom or Advanced installation type and uncheck all additional applications in which you are unsure.

To sum up

Now your personal computer should be clean of the Adware.Agent adware that causes intrusive pop-up ads. Delete AdwCleaner. We suggest that you keep Zemana Free (to periodically scan your computer for new ad-supported softwares and other malicious software) and AdGuard (to help you stop undesired pop-ups and harmful web sites). Moreover, to prevent adwares, please stay clear of unknown and third party programs, make sure that your antivirus program, turn on the option to find PUPs (potentially unwanted programs).

If you need more help with Adware.Agent adware related issues, go to our Spyware/Malware removal forum.