How to Remove Amazon Assistant Virus Fake Popup


Amazon Assistant virus is a fake extension build by cybercriminals to display advertisements and track users shopping activity. In this article, you will see how to remove the Amazon Assistant fake extension from your computer. But first, let’s see what the real Amazon Assistant does.

Amazon Assistant is a legitimate browser add-on that is used to increase the shopping experience of the users. It helps users to compare the pricing with Amazon when you are at some other shopping portal. It searches for the product you are browsing and display the price differences. The extension is also helpful in tracking your order with Amazon.

Amazon Assistant Extension

You can watch the real-time status of your current order or the shipment with the help of this extension. It also lets you access the order history, exclusive offers. You can even save products directly with the help of this extension. It also lists today’s deals and notifies you when they go live. It is available for all browsers including Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera, Edge, and Internet Explorer.

What is Fake Amazon Assistant (Virus)?

Cybercriminals often duplicate the popular software to sneak in the user’s computer. It is the best way to infect lots of machines in a small time, as people will trust that software because of its popularity. People aren’t aware that the particular application is stealing their data and sending it to their makers.

Amazon Assistant

That’s what happened with Amazon Assistant browser add-on. Amazon created this extension to help users by increasing their shopping experience, but online fraudsters duplicate this application. Browser extensions are easy to replicate and can easily sneak into the user’s browsing activity.

What does Amazon Assistant Fake Extension do?

The fake Amazon Assistant browser add-on is created to display advertisement that promotes targeted products and generate leads in favour of its creator. It displays banners, pop-ups, and other forms of ads in your browser which completely ruins your browsing experience. Below are some possible harms it can do.

  • The Amazon Assistant virus could redirect you to fake amazon website and steal your credit card information.
  • It records your browsing activity such as browsing history, search history, IP address, location, etc.
  • It also tracks your clicks and most visited websites.
  • Can display pop-ups on any page that open in the browser. Also, insert ads via highlighting the text on most visiting URLs.

It is clear that this Amazon Assistant virus is created to generate revenue by promoting products using the affiliate scheme. However, the makers can also sell the collected information to third-party clients. They may use it for other illicit activities.

Such a fake extension cannot be classified as a virus however most users consider it a threat; thus they search using the virus term. The phony extension is an adware and is classified as Potentially Unwanted Application (PUP).

The real question is why Amazon is distributing a malicious extension? Well, they are not, the extension available on their website and the official store is genuine. So, how this fake extension enters in the user’s computer?

How Amazon Assistant Virus Spread?

The fake Amazon add-on is distributed with the help of software bundling and counterfeit installers. The creators of this PUP bundle it with free or pirated software. Then they upload that software on the websites. When you download and install such a software that the PUP is bundled with, you also install that unknowingly.

Most of these software doesn’t reveal accurately about the bundled software. However, in some cases, you can see them by using the custom/advanced installation method. The PUP is preselected, and basic computer users consider them an essential tool, so they don’t deselect and end up installing a fake browser addon.

How to Remove Fake Amazon Assistant Extension (Virus)?

Follow the below steps to remove the Amazon Assistant Virus from your system.

Step 1 – Remove Unwanted Suspicious Programs

The Fake Amazon extension enters in your system with the help of other software. So you need to remove that software first. But you know which software is the culprit, so examine all recently installed application that you downloaded from shady websites and remove them.

Press Win+R button to open the Run window.

Type appwiz.cpl and press OK.

Uninstall Programs 1

Find the suspicious applications, right click on them and choose Uninstall.

Uninstall Programs 2

Now follow the instructions to delete that software.

Step 2- Remove Amazon Assistant Extension from the Browsers

Google Chrome

Click on the Menu button in Chrome, then hover the mouse over More tools, then click on Extensions.

Remove Extension from Chrome

Now locate the Amazon Assistant extension and click on the Remove button.

Remove Amazon Assistant Extension Chrome

Now confirm your action by clicking on the Remove button again.

Remove Amazon Assistant Extension Chrome 3

Mozilla Firefox

Click on the Firefox Menu, and Choose Add-ons

Remove Extension from Firefox

Now look for Amazon Assistant and click on the Remove button.

Remove Amazon Assistant Extension Firefox 2

Microsoft Edge

Click on the Edge Menu and choose Extensions.

Remove Extension from Edge

Now find the Amazon Assistant and hover your mouse on it, then click on the gear icon.

Remove Amazon Assistant Extension Edge 2

Now Click on the Uninstall button, then confirm to remove it.

Remove Amazon Assistant Extension Edge 3

Step 3 – Run MalwareFox Antimalware to Clean your PC

Download MalwareFox Antimalware.

Now install MalwareFox on your computer.

Once the MalwareFox is installed, it will update the program and signature database.

MalwareFox Updating Signature

Now click on the Scan button to run the scan.

Scan with MalwareFox 1

The scan will take a while depending on the content of your hard drive. Once the scan is completed click on Next to remove the threats from your PC.

Scan with MalwareFox 3

You have successfully removed the Amazon assistant extension virus from your computer. Now keep the real-time protection of MalwareFox enabled so that it can prevent such PUPs and malware from entering your system. And you need to stop installing software from untrusted sources.

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