PlayTopus - How to remove

PlayTopus is a web games website offering thousands of flash games. And it offers a browser toolbar to access the premium games section. This browser add-on may be the reason why your browsing is disturbed by various annoying ads.

If your computer is infected with this annoying adware, you will see a lot of ads when surfing the Internet. Once added, it will display promotions in all kinds of forms, such as banner-type ads, in-text ads, video ads, underlined keywords, search-related ads, and various sponsored links.

This is because browser add-ons get a lot of power over the browser, including tracking your browsing and sometimes even the ability to change how all your webpages are displayed.

The PlayTopus application can get installed on your computer without you even being aware of it, such as downloaded through bundling.

Browser adware that installs without permission is a real issue and PlayTopus isn’t the only offender: Resoft Smartbar, MyQuickLotto, AssistEngine are also examples of browser extensions that act like adware.

It’s advisable to remove the PlayTopus to avoid having your browser flooded with unwanted ads:

Type of threat	Adware Browser hijacker
PlayTopus infection symptoms	Floating ads, banners, pop-ups on websites that didn’t use to have them Ads on top of page content Longer page loading times
Dangers	Low-quality ads might lead to dangerous websites Distracting ads hurt your productivity
Delete PlayTopus	Uninstall the adware manually using the Control Panel Find and remove malware using anti-malware tools (SpyHunter)

How PlayTopus adware works

PlayTopus works as a brewer add-on that can be added to all most popular web browsers, including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer. Because of the reason that this browser add-on is absolutely free to use, the owners of it flood users with ads to make money from it. They earn money by generating web traffic and collecting sales leads. All the ads injected by PlayTopus into your browser are numerous, distracting, and can make browsing a frustrating experience. They add to webpage loading time and require more hardware resources.

To make the advertisements more effective, PlayTopus will collect your personal information, such as the browsing history, search queries, IP address, and TOP visited sites and transfers it to the mentioned third parties. The latter adjust their ads according to this data and make them more relevant to your interests. Some would consider PlayTopus to be violating users’ privacy.

Ads being used to make money to continue to deliver free content is normal, however, it can also be problematic for the users, especially when PlayTopus gets installed without even warning you.

Is PlayTopus dangerous?

Most cybersecurity specialists suggest to get rid of the PlayTopus adware toolbar as soon as possible and so do we. Even though it is not officially a virus, it can lead you to some very serious cybersecurity problems.

That’s because adware infections promote low-quality ads which usually include some dangerous websites, for example, content created to scam people out of their money, sell them possibly-unregulated supplements, steal their credit card data, trick them to install unwanted software, and other unhelpful stuff. Ads presented by PlayTopus can genuinely be dangerous.

PlayTopus is distributed bundled with free software that can be downloaded from the Internet. I.e. when you download and install some freebie, there is a chance that PlayTopus will be installed alongside. It’s also possible to download the extension intentionally, but based on the various complaints online, it seems like a lot of people just had it pop up out of nowhere — which means that PlayTopus is frequently installed without the computer owner’s consent.

That being said, if you want to avoid accidentally installing potentially dangerous programs, you should pay attention to the installation of such software, especially if it was downloaded from suspicious-looking websites. Do not skip any steps and opt for a custom or advanced install mode if possible. This will let you see all the available options. Do not allow the installation of any additional software that looks fishy and you have no knowledge about as this can possibly be and adware or other malware. And try to always download from the developer’s site or from a reputable distributor.

If your computer is already infected, you should scan it with a trustworthy anti-malware, such as Spyhunter or malwarebytes, and this will solve the problem automatically. If you want to perform this manually, you can just follow our step-by-step PlayTopus removal guide given below.

How to delete PlayTopus

Automatic Malware removal tools

How to remove PlayTopus using Windows Control Panel

Many hijackers and adware like PlayTopus install some of their components as regular Windows programs as well as additional software. This part of malware can be uninstalled from the Control Panel. To access it, do the following.

• Start→Control Panel (older Windows) or press Windows Key→Search and enter Control Panel and then press Enter (Windows 8, Windows 10).
• Choose Uninstall Program (if you don't see it, click in the upper right next to "View by" and select Category).
• Go through the list of programs and select entries related to PlayTopus . You can click on "Name" or "Installed On" to reorder your programs and make PlayTopus easier to find.
• Click the Uninstall button. If you're asked if you really want to remove the program, click Yes.
• In many cases anti-malware programs are better at detecting related parasites, thus I recommend installing Spyhunter to identify other programs that might be a part of this infection.

How to remove PlayTopus from macOS

Delete PlayTopus from your applications.

1. Open Finder.
2. In the menu bar, click Go.
3. Select Applications from the dropdown.
4. Find the PlayTopus app.
5. Select it and right-click it (or hold the Ctrl and click the left mouse button).
6. In the dropdown, click Move to Bin/Trash. You might be asked to provide your login password.

TopRemove malicious extensions from Internet Explorer

• Press on the Gear icon→Manage Add-ons.
  
• Go through Toolbars and extensions. Remove everything related to PlayTopus and items you do not know that are made not by Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Oracle or Adobe.
  
• Close the Options.

(Optional) Reset your browser’s settings

If you are still experiencing any issues related to PlayTopus, reset the settings of your browser to its default settings.

• Press on the Gear icon->Internet Options.
  
• Choose the Advanced tab and click on the Reset button.
  
• Select a “Delete personal settings” checkbox and click on the Reset button.
  
• Click on the Close button on the confirmation box, then close your browser.
  

If you cannot reset your browser settings and the problem persists, scan your system with an anti-malware program.

TopRemoving PlayTopus from Chrome

• Click on the menu button on the top right corner of a Google Chrome window. Select “Settings”.
  
• Click “Extensions” on the left menu bar.
• Go through the extensions list and remove programs you do not need, especially similar to PlayTopus. Click on the trash bin icon next to PlayTopus or other add-ons you want to remove.
  
• Press on the “Remove” button on the Confirmation window.
  
• If unsure, you can disable them temporarily.
  
• Restart Chrome.

(Optional) Reset your browser’s settings

If you are still experiencing any issues related to PlayTopus, reset the settings of your browser to its default settings.

• Click on Chrome’s menu button (three horizontal lines) and select Settings.
  
• Scroll to the end of the page and click on the Reset settings button.
  
• Click on the Reset button on the confirmation box.
  

If you cannot reset your browser settings and the problem persists, scan your system with an anti-malware program.

TopRemoving PlayTopus from Firefox

• Click on the menu button on the top right corner of a Mozilla window and select the “Add-ons” icon (or press Ctrl+Shift+A on your keyboard).
  
• Go through Extensions and Addons list, remove everything PlayTopus related and items you do not recognise. If you do not know the extension and it is not made by Mozilla, Google, Microsoft, Oracle or Adobe then you probably do not need it.
  

(Optional) Reset your browser’s settings If you are still experiencing any issues related to PlayTopus, reset the settings of your browser to its default settings.

• Click on the menu button on the top right corner of a Mozilla Firefox window. Click on the Help button.
  
• Choose Troubleshooting Information on the Help menu.
  
• Click on the Reset Firefox button.
  
• Click on the Reset Firefox button on the confirmation box. Mozilla Firefox will close and change the settings to default.
  

If you cannot reset your browser settings and the problem persists, scan your system with an anti-malware program.

How to remove PlayTopus from Microsoft Edge:Top

• Click on the menu button on the top right corner of a Microsoft Edge window. Select “Extensions”.

• Go through the extensions list and remove programs you do not need, especially similar to PlayTopus. Click on the "Remove" icon next to PlayTopus or other add-ons you want to remove.

• Press on the “Remove” button on the Confirmation window.

• If unsure, you can disable them temporarily.

• Restart Microsoft Edge.

TopRemoving PlayTopus from Safari (Mac OS X)

• Click on the Safari menu.
• Choose Preferences.
  
• Click on the Extensions Tab.
• Click on the Uninstall button near the PlayTopus. Remove all other unknown or suspicious entries too. If you are not sure whether you need the extension or not, you can simply uncheck the Enable check-box to disable the extension temporarily.
  
• Restart Safari.

(Optional) Reset your browser’s settings

If you are still experiencing any issues related to PlayTopus, reset the settings of your browser to its default settings.

• Click on the Safari menu on the top left corner of the screen. Select Reset Safari.
  
• Select which options you want to reset (usually all of them come preselected) and click on the Reset button.
  

If you cannot reset your browser settings and the problem persists, scan your system with an anti-malware program.