There are many types of potentially unwanted programs (PUPs) and one of them is ‘ad-supported’ software (also known as adware). The adware, which causes the appearance of Free2play-gaming.com pop-up advertisements or the reroute to this annoying web-site, have a negative impact on the functioning of your system. It changes computer settings, generates lots of various advertisements, slows down the Firefox, Microsoft Internet Explorer, MS Edge and Google Chrome.
The adware that redirects your internet browser to various ad sites such as Free2play-gaming.com, is not a virus, but the virus behaves similarly. As a rootkit hides in the system, modifies web-browser settings and blocks them from changing. Also the adware can install additional web-browser plugins and modules that will inject sponsored links within the MS Edge, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer and Firefox’s screen. Moreover, the adware may install web-browser hijacker that once started, will modify the web-browser’s home page and search provider. The worst is, the ad-supported software can be used to collect a wide variety of user data about you such as what web-sites you are opening, what you are looking for the Net and so on. This privacy information, subsequently, may be used for marketing purposes.
The adware often alter all web browser shortcut files that located on your Desktop to force you visit various undesired ad pages. As a result, your browser can still redirect you to an annoying ad webpage despite your computer is actually free of ad supported software and other malicious software.
Therefore it’s very important to follow the step-by-step tutorial below without a wait. The few simple steps will assist you to remove ad supported software as well as clean your PC from the Free2play-gaming.com advertisements. What is more, the step-by-step guide below will help you get rid of other harmful apps like undesired toolbars and browser hijackers, which can be installed onto personal computer along with the ad-supported software.
Remove Free2play-gaming.com pop up ads (removal instructions)
We suggest opting for automatic Free2play-gaming.com popup ads removal in order to remove all adware related entries easily. This method requires scanning the computer with reputable antimalware, e.g. Zemana, MalwareBytes Free or Hitman Pro. However, if you prefer manual removal steps, you can follow the instructions below in this blog post. Certain of the steps will require you to restart your personal computer or exit this web-page. So, read this guidance carefully, then bookmark or print it for later reference.
To remove Free2play-gaming.com, use the steps below:
- Delete Free2play-gaming.com popups without any utilities
- Remove Free2play-gaming.com related apps through the Control Panel of your computer
- Delete Free2play-gaming.com from Mozilla Firefox by resetting web-browser settings
- Remove Free2play-gaming.com popup ads from Google Chrome
- Remove Free2play-gaming.com pop-ups from Microsoft Internet Explorer
- Delete unwanted Scheduled Tasks
- Clean up the browsers shortcuts that have been hijacked by ‘ad supported’ software
- How to automatically remove Free2play-gaming.com pop-ups
- How to block Free2play-gaming.com redirect
- To sum up
Delete Free2play-gaming.com popups without any utilities
If you perform exactly the step-by-step guide below you should be able to remove the Free2play-gaming.com redirect from the Microsoft Internet Explorer, Edge, Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome browsers.
Remove Free2play-gaming.com related apps through the Control Panel of your computer
Some potentially unwanted apps, browser hijacking apps and adware can be removed by uninstalling the free software they came with. If this way does not succeed, then looking them up in the list of installed programs in MS Windows Control Panel. Use the “Uninstall” command in order to get rid of them.
Make sure you have closed all browsers and other programs. Press CTRL, ALT, DEL keys together to open the Microsoft Windows Task Manager.
Click on the “Processes” tab, look for something suspicious that is the ad-supported software responsible for Free2play-gaming.com advertisements 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 Microsoft 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, uninstall any unwanted 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. Choose “Programs and Features”, then “Uninstall a program”.
Look around the entire list of apps installed on your machine. Most probably, one of them is the adware which redirects your web-browser to annoying Free2play-gaming.com webpage. Choose the suspicious application or the program that name is not familiar to you and uninstall it.
Windows Vista, 7
From the “Start” menu in Microsoft Windows, choose “Control Panel”. Under the “Programs” icon, select “Uninstall a program”.
Choose the suspicious or any unknown software, then click “Uninstall/Change” button to delete this unwanted program from your computer.
Windows XP
Click the “Start” button, select “Control Panel” option. Click on “Add/Remove Programs”.
Choose an unwanted application, then press “Change/Remove” button. Follow the prompts.
Delete Free2play-gaming.com from Mozilla Firefox by resetting web-browser settings
If the Firefox browser program is hijacked, then resetting its settings can help. The Reset feature is available on all modern version of Firefox. A reset can fix many issues by restoring Firefox settings like default search engine, new tab and start page to their original state. It will save your personal information such as saved passwords, bookmarks, auto-fill data and open tabs.
Click the Menu button (looks like three horizontal lines), and click the blue Help icon located at the bottom of the drop down menu as on the image below.
A small menu will appear, press the “Troubleshooting Information”. On this page, click “Refresh Firefox” button as shown on the screen below.
Follow the onscreen procedure to restore your Mozilla Firefox browser settings to their default values.
Remove Free2play-gaming.com popup ads from Google Chrome
Reset Google Chrome settings is a easy way to remove the hijacker infections, harmful and ‘ad-supported’ extensions, as well as to restore the browser’s home page, newtab page and search engine by default that have been changed by ad-supported software responsible for redirecting your web browser to Free2play-gaming.com web-site.
- First run the Chrome and click Menu button (small button in the form of three dots).
- It will open the Chrome main menu. Choose More Tools, then click Extensions.
- You will see the list of installed extensions. If the list has the addon labeled with “Installed by enterprise policy” or “Installed by your administrator”, then complete the following guide: Remove Chrome extensions installed by enterprise policy.
- Now open the Google Chrome menu once again, click the “Settings” menu.
- You will see the Google Chrome’s settings page. Scroll down and click “Advanced” link.
- Scroll down again and click the “Reset” button.
- The Chrome will display the reset profile settings page as shown on the image above.
- Next click the “Reset” button.
- Once this process is finished, your web-browser’s default search provider, new tab and homepage will be restored to their original defaults.
- To learn more, read the article How to reset Google Chrome settings to default.
Remove Free2play-gaming.com pop-ups from Microsoft Internet Explorer
If you find that IE web browser settings such as homepage, new tab page and default search engine had been modified by ad-supported software which redirects your web browser to annoying Free2play-gaming.com web-site, then you may revert back your settings, via the reset browser procedure.
First, run the IE, click ) button. Next, click “Internet Options” as on the image 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 computer for the changes to take effect. It will delete adware that cause unwanted Free2play-gaming.com popup advertisements to appear, disable malicious and ad-supported web-browser’s extensions and restore the Internet Explorer’s settings like search engine by default, newtab page and start page to default state.
Delete unwanted Scheduled Tasks
Once installed, the ad supported software can add a task in to the Windows Task Scheduler Library. Due to this, every time when you start your machine, it will open Free2play-gaming.com unwanted page. So, you need to check the Task Scheduler Library and delete all harmful tasks that have been created by malicious application.
Press Windows and R keys on the keyboard at the same time. This shows a dialog box that called 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 shown in the figure below.
In the middle part you will see a list of installed tasks. Please select the first task, its properties will be show just below automatically. Next, press the Actions tab. Pay attention to that it launches on your PC system. Found something like “explorer.exe http://site.address” or “chrome.exe http://site.address”, then get rid of 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 ‘ad-supported’ application, then this task also should be removed.
Having defined the task that you want to delete, then click on it with the right mouse button and choose Delete as shown on the screen below.
Repeat this step, if you have found a few tasks that have been created by adware. Once is done, close the Task Scheduler window.
Clean up the browsers shortcuts that have been hijacked by ‘ad supported’ software
Important to know, most anti-malware software which are able to remove adware that redirects your web-browser to undesired Free2play-gaming.com webpage, but unable to search for and recover changed shortcut files. So, you need to fix the desktop shortcut files for your Chrome, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Edge browsers manually.
Right click on the web browser’s shortcut, click Properties option. 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 “http://site.address” which has been added here. Remove everything after .exe. An example, for Google Chrome you should remove everything after chrome.exe.
To save changes, press OK . You need to clean all browser’s shortcut files. So, repeat this step for the Microsoft Internet Explorer, Firefox, Edge and Google Chrome.
How to automatically remove Free2play-gaming.com pop-ups
Run malicious software removal utilities to get rid of Free2play-gaming.com redirect automatically. The free programs utilities specially created for browser hijacker infections, ad-supported software and other potentially unwanted programs removal. These tools may remove most of adware from Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Edge and Chrome. Moreover, it may remove all components of ad supported software from Windows registry and system drives.
How to remove Free2play-gaming.com popup advertisements with Zemana Anti-malware
Zemana Anti-malware is a utility that can remove adware, PUPs, browser hijacker infections and other malware from your PC 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 personal computer resources.
Now you can install and use Zemana Free to remove Free2play-gaming.com pop ups from your internet browser by following the steps below:
Please go to the following link to download Zemana setup file called Zemana.AntiMalware.Setup on your PC system. Save it on your MS Windows desktop.
164113 downloads
Author: Zemana Ltd
Category: Security tools
Update: July 16, 2019
Start the setup package after it has been downloaded successfully and then follow the prompts to install this tool on your machine.
During installation you can change certain settings, but we recommend you don’t make any changes to default settings.
When setup is finished, this malicious software removal tool will automatically run and update itself. You will see its main window like below.
Now press the “Scan” button for scanning your computer for the adware which developed to redirect your browser to various ad pages such as Free2play-gaming.com. Depending on your machine, the scan can take anywhere from a few minutes to close to an hour. While the Zemana Anti-Malware application is checking, you can see number of objects it has identified as threat.
When Zemana Free has finished scanning, Zemana Anti-Malware (ZAM) will show you the results. When you are ready, press “Next” button.
The Zemana Free will remove ‘ad supported’ software that causes web browsers to display undesired Free2play-gaming.com popup ads and add threats to the Quarantine. After that process is complete, you may be prompted to reboot your computer to make the change take effect.
Run HitmanPro to get rid of Free2play-gaming.com popup advertisements from internet browser
Hitman Pro is a free portable program that scans your PC for ad-supported software which redirects your web browser to undesired Free2play-gaming.com web-page, potentially unwanted programs and hijackers and helps remove them easily. Moreover, it will also help you delete any harmful web-browser extensions and add-ons.
Visit the following page to download Hitman Pro. Save it on your Desktop.
After the download is finished, open the directory in which you saved it. You will see an icon like below.
Double click the Hitman Pro desktop icon. After the tool is launched, you will see a screen as shown in the following example.
Further, click “Next” button to begin checking your system for the adware related to Free2play-gaming.com pop-up ads. A system scan can take anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes, depending on your personal computer. After the system scan is complete, a list of all items detected is produced as shown in the figure below.
Next, you need to click “Next” button. It will display a dialog box, click the “Activate free license” button.
How to remove Free2play-gaming.com with Malwarebytes
We advise using the Malwarebytes Free. You can download and install Malwarebytes to find ad supported software and thereby remove Free2play-gaming.com pop-up ads from your web-browsers. When installed and updated, the free malware remover will automatically check and detect all threats exist on the system.
Visit the following page to download the latest version of MalwareBytes for MS Windows. Save it to your Desktop so that you can access the file easily.
326464 downloads
Author: Malwarebytes
Category: Security tools
Update: April 15, 2020
Once the download is done, run it and follow the prompts. Once installed, the MalwareBytes Anti Malware will try to update itself and when this procedure is complete, click the “Scan Now” button to perform a system scan with this tool for the adware that causes web browsers to show unwanted Free2play-gaming.com popup ads. Depending on your computer, the scan can take anywhere from a few minutes to close to an hour. Next, you need to click “Quarantine Selected” button.
The MalwareBytes Free is a free program that you can use to delete all detected folders, files, services, registry entries and so on. To learn more about this malware removal utility, we advise you to read and follow the step-by-step guidance or the video guide below.
How to block Free2play-gaming.com redirect
It’s important to use ad blocker apps such as AdGuard to protect your personal computer from malicious pages. Most security experts says that it is okay to block advertisements. You should do so just to stay safe! And, of course, the AdGuard can to stop Free2play-gaming.com and other annoying webpages.
Click the following link to download the latest version of AdGuard for Microsoft Windows. Save it on your Desktop.
26659 downloads
Version: 6.4
Author: © Adguard
Category: Security tools
Update: November 15, 2018
After downloading it, double-click the downloaded file to start it. The “Setup Wizard” window will show up on the computer screen as displayed in the following example.
Follow the prompts. AdGuard will then be installed and an icon will be placed on your desktop. A window will show up asking you to confirm that you want to see a quick guide as displayed in the figure below.
Click “Skip” button to close the window and use the default settings, or click “Get Started” to see an quick guide which will allow you get to know AdGuard better.
Each time, when you start your machine, AdGuard will start automatically and block ads, Free2play-gaming.com redirect, 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 may be found on your desktop.
To sum up
Now your PC should be clean of the adware which cause undesired Free2play-gaming.com popups to appear. We suggest that you keep Zemana (to periodically scan your computer for new adwares and other malicious software) and AdGuard (to help you stop annoying advertisements and harmful webpages). Moreover, to prevent any adware, please stay clear of unknown and third party software, make sure that your antivirus application, turn on the option to look for potentially unwanted software.
If you need more help with Free2play-gaming.com pop-up ads related issues, go to our Spyware/Malware removal forum.