Recently, there have been a lot of viruses that hijacked browsers. Information constantly pops up on the Internet that there are more and more new threats. One of these is a Hijackers class virus called Powered by Capricornus. How to remove it from your computer, not every ordinary user knows. The following are two main methods that will get rid of this scourge once and for all. But first, a few words about the virus itself.
What is Powered by Capricornus?
Yes, indeed, the virus itself belongs to the hijackers, but it also has a number of side effects. Like many other threats in this series, its initial effect is manifested in the fact that the start page and search system are replaced in browsers, as well as a huge amount of advertising of dubious content (they say you want to make money quickly or lose weight in a week?).
There is nothing original about the penetration of this threat to computers. As a rule, this software is installed together with other applications taken from doubtful or unreliable sources. In any case, spontaneous penetration into the system was not noticed. Therefore, the user should initially pay special attention to proposals for installing additional (partner) software.
How does the virus affect the system?
But if only the activity of the virus was associated with the display of advertising ... Its effect on the system has more sad consequences. The fact is that it can change the settings of the “Desktop”, inject itself into system files, slow down the work of browsers and the OS as a whole, increase the load on system resources, issue false security warnings, etc.
But the worst thing is that this program can gain access to the user's personal data, without his knowledge connecting to the Internet and transmitting information to attackers. Therefore, once such activity has been noticed, you need to understand how to remove Powered by Capricornus. This can be done by two main methods, which will be discussed later.
I would also like to draw the attention of some users at that moment that the problem of how to remove Capricornus Ads (ads) by enabling the standard AdBlock is not solved. Other methods will be required here.
How to remove Powered by Capricornus: special tools
If the user has some portable utility at hand, you can use it. It’s better not to use regular anti-virus scanners, because they already missed the virus.
It is usually recommended to use programs like Dr. Web CureIt! (pure antivirus, so to speak), but narrowly targeted utilities like AdwCleaner are better for Hijackers discharge threats.
How to remove Powered by Capricornus manually in a standard way?
But, suppose that the search and neutralization of this virus with the help of protective agents did not produce an effect, and the negative impact on the system continues. How to remove Powered by Capricornus ads in this situation? Here you will have to use the manual removal technique.
First of all, you should use the usual section of programs and components from the Control Panel and perform a standard uninstall of the virus and all its components (the threat itself is not masked and is displayed in the list of installed software).
At the next stage, the solution to the problem of how to remove Powered by Capricornus involves the removal of all residual components in the registry (regedit) and in the file manager (Win + E). Typically, in the registry this is the Capricornus section, located in the SOFTWARE directory of the HKLM branch, in Explorer, the folder of the same name in the ProgramFiles directory. But for the sake of fidelity, it is better to search by name (Ctrl + F) and get rid of everything that can be found.
Removing extensions and changing browser settings
However, it is too early to rejoice. Now the question of how to remove Powered by Capricornus implies changing browser settings with cleaning search engines and start pages. Such actions must be done with all browsers that are on the system (be sure not to forget about Internet Explorer and Edge for the tenth version of Windows).
To get started, you can simply remove all add-ons related to the virus, change the search and set a blank page to start the browser.
However, purely in practical terms, it is much easier to perform a reset with the deletion of personal data.
Next, you need to check all the registry entries for the browser executables for references to the virus page or threat components in the object type. How to remove Powered by Capricornus?
For this, access to the properties of the shortcut is used (via the PCM menu), and then after the EXE extension everything that can be present is deleted. If this methodology of the user does not suit you, you can use programs like FixerBro, which automatically scan all the browser shortcuts and delete unnecessary postscripts yourself.
And only upon completion of all these actions is a complete reboot of the system, after which the problem of how to remove Powered by Capricornus can be considered completely resolved. In principle, in order to be absolutely sure that the threat is removed from the system, just in case after restarting the computer, it is recommended to perform a full scan with the anti-virus utility and install a deep scan.
Total
It remains to add that the virus, although it is quite malicious, is nevertheless quite simple to remove. The method described above, by the way, is suitable for most threats of this type, and not just for the specified virus.
Tip: Never, under any circumstances, install advertised utilities like SpyHunter. It turns out that you can’t remove the virus, and don’t get rid of the program later (you can do this, but the process for the average user will be quite complicated and time-consuming).