SweetCoupon - How to remove

SweetCoupon is yet another malicious application listed as an adware and a PUP (potentially unwanted program) due to its’ malicious activities. Even though it is described as a useful application (“Online shopping just gets even better when paired with the SweetCoupon browser add-on. Get all the best deals available online and save your budgets. “), that will help to save your time and money when shopping online by displaying various coupons, deals and other commercial offers, it is not true. It works as a browser add-on that can be added to all most popular web browsers, such as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox or Internet Explorer (it is still not available on Mac OSX or Linux). Once installed, it will display ads on your web browser from time to time, randomly. Those ads can be displayed in various forms, such as banner, pop-up, pop-under or in-text ads. Yes, it is true that this application displays various commercial forms. Usually they appear on e-commerce websites, such as eBay or Amazon and offers users to purchase some particular goods at a better price rate. But this won’t save your omen or time. Vice versa, this malicious add-on will waste your time and you are in a real danger of losing money due to this. First of all, those adds appear randomly, not when you need to buy something, so it is obviously annoying and disturbing. Secondly, SweetCoupon is completely free for users and that means it is sponsored by third parties. The problem is that those third parties often happens to be various cyber criminals, such as hackers and scammers. That means, if you have this add-on installed on your computer, criminals can reach you right on your web browser, on a daily basis, through this malicious advertising network. Not only most of those ads are fake, but they lead to malicious third parties as well. You should not click on them, unless you want to get your computer infected or lose your money if you try to purchase something that is promoted on this advertising network and get scammed. Another unwanted attribute of SweetCoupon is data collection. Pay a visit to their official website at http://sweetcoupon.info/index.htm and take a look at their privacy policy. Look at the second column called “Data Colelction”:

Data Collection

i. We may collect certain information about your web usage and websites you have visited, which may be shared with third parties and used for advertising. NOTE: THE PLUGIN AND OTHER SERVICES COLLECT AND STORES INFORMATION CONCERNING THE WEB PAGES YOU VISIT AND YOUR ACTIVITY ON THOSE PAGES, SUCH AS IMPRESSIONS, CLICKS AND SEARCH TERMS. IN SOME CASES, INFORMATION COLLECTED BY THE PLUGIN AND OTHER SERVICES MAY BE PERSONALLY IDENTIFIABLE, AND IN SOME CASES INFORMATION (INCLUDING INFORMATION FROM OR ABOUT PAGES OF SOCIAL MEDIA WEBSITES YOU VISIT) MAY BE USED OR SHARED WITH THIRD PARTIES FOR PURPOSES OF DISPLAYING TARGETED ADVERTISEMENTS PROMOTIONAL AND MARKETING MATERIAL TO YOU.

Data Usage

Information we collect from you may be used in any of the following ways:

i. To personalize your experience (your information helps us to better respond to your individual needs).

ii. To improve our Plugin and other Services (we continually strive to improve our application offerings based on the information and feedback we receive from you).

iii. To improve customer service (your information helps us to more effectively respond to your customer service requests and support your needs).

iv. To process transactions.

v. To administer a contest, promotion, survey or other Site features.

vi. To send periodic emails (the email address you provide for order processing, may be used to send you information and updates pertaining to your order, in addition to receiving occasional company news, updates, related product or service information, etc.).

In a nutshell, this means that SweetCoupon will collect your personal information, such as browsing history, search queries, top visited websites, your IP and email addresses. This information can be sold or transferred to mentioned third parties. This way you can get infected with another malware, because cyber criminals now knows a whole lot information about you so you are more vulnerable and your email will continuously get attacked with spam emails. Also, it is used to adjust those ads according given information about your browsing habits, this makes them more engaging and attractive to you. This means the possibility that you will click on one of those ads – rise. And it is the main goal of SweetCoupon, because they get paid for that.

If you take a closer look to their official website, you will see that there is no download button there. That’s because SweetCoupon is distributed bundled with other free software, various PDF generators, media players of fake Flash player updates. I.e. when you download and install some freebie from a suspicious looking website, this adware can get installed alongside. To avoid this happening, you should not download anything from unreliable websites. However, if you decided to so, be very careful during the installation of software. Do not skip any steps and make sure to opt out for a custom or advanced install mode. This will allow you to see all available options. Read all terms and conditions as well. If you see that some additional software is being installed alongside and you are not ware it – do not allow this to happen, as this potentially can be another malware. In case it is too late and your computer is already infected, you should wait no more and get rid of this malicious application. You can do it either way – automatically or manually. We recommend to do it automatically, because it is more reliable and effective way. Download a trustworthy anti-malware, such as Spyhunter, StopZilla or Malwarebytes and scan your PC with it. It will detect and remove the threat and protect your computer from similar infections in the future as well. However, if for some reasons you don’t want to use any anti-malware application, you can remove SweetCoupon manually – just follow our step-by-step removal instructions given below.

How to get rid of SweetCoupon adware manually

How to remove SweetCoupon using Windows Control Panel

Many hijackers and adware like SweetCoupon 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 SweetCoupon . You can click on "Name" or "Installed On" to reorder your programs and make SweetCoupon 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.

TopRemoving SweetCoupon 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 SweetCoupon 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 SweetCoupon, 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.

TopRemove malicious extensions from Internet Explorer

• Press on the Gear icon→Manage Add-ons.
  
• Go through Toolbars and extensions. Remove everything related to SweetCoupon 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 SweetCoupon, 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 SweetCoupon 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 SweetCoupon. Click on the trash bin icon next to SweetCoupon 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 SweetCoupon, 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.

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