Moatads Removal Guide

Do you know what Moatads is?

Moatads is an adware server that might one day start displaying advertisements on your screen. Theoretically, you might see its commercials after you enter a dubious domain that redirects you further to a page with ads. Also, ads promoted by the Moatads advertising domain might be opened for you automatically no matter what you do. According to our malware researchers, users usually see irritating commercials not because they land on untrustworthy domains. In most cases, malware modifies the hosts file (%Windir%\System32\drivers\etc\hosts) by inserting the z.moatads.com entry. As a consequence, users see ads on all pages they visit. Some of these ads might seem to be quite appealing, but you should still not click on any of them if they ever show up on your screen because they might expose you to potential threats. It is the reason you should go to stop the flow of commercials coming from Moatads as well. Most likely, you will have to undo the changes made inside your hosts file in order to eliminate commercial advertisements completely. You will find more about the removal of ads if you read this article till the end.

Ads shown by the Moatads advertising domain might only bring problems to you if you click on them, so you should put effort into avoiding them. Of course, it would be best to eliminate them all from the screen completely because the chances are high that sooner or later you will click on them incidentally and end up on untrustworthy third-party pages against your will. Not all advertisements displayed to you will be harmful, but the Moatads advertising domain might display to you malicious ads too, so you should be very careful with the ads you see. As mentioned at the beginning of this article, the smartest move would be their complete removal because they might expose you to potential threats by redirecting you to pages they promote. Some of these websites might even contain untrustworthy applications or try to convince you to provide personal details. Never submit any personal information about yourself on websites you know nothing about because they might be administered by cyber criminals and, as a consequence, your privacy might be violated.

There is a small possibility that you have opened a wrong website if you have been presented with Moatads ads, but, of course, our specialists still believe that the majority of users who see these commercial advertisements coming from the Moatads network on their screens are victims of malware. Most likely, malicious software has entered their PCs illegally and modified the hosts file, they say. According to our experienced specialists, such bad programs usually arrive on users’ PCs in software bundles and then immediately apply changes. Since there are so many untrustworthy applications available, we understand that it might be quite hard to ensure the system’s maximum protection alone, especially if you do not know much about the typical behavior and distribution of serious malware. Fortunately, we know one easy method to prevent future malware from entering the system – enable a security application on your computer ASAP.

Advertisements coming from the Moatads advertising domain will no longer be visible after you restart your browser to default and remove suspicious entries from the hosts file. It is not a huge problem if you have never done that before because our manual removal guide (you can find it below this article) is ready to help you. If it happens that you still see irritating commercial advertisements on your screen after performing the removal steps indicated in our manual removal guide, it would be smart to scan the system with an automated malware remover. These automated tools fix problems in no time.

How to delete Moatads

Reset browsers to default

Internet Explorer

1. Open Internet Explorer.
2. Press Alt+T.
3. Click Internet Options.
4. Click Advanced.
5. Click Reset.
6. Mark Delete personal settings.
7. Click Reset.

Mozilla Firefox

1. Launch Mozilla Firefox and tap Alt+H.
2. Click Troubleshooting information.
3. Click the Refresh Firefox button at the top.
4. Click this button once again in the confirmation box.

Google Chrome

1. Open Google Chrome.
2. Press Alt+F.
3. Click Settings.
4. Click Advanced.
5. Click the Reset button.

Modify the hosts file

1. Press Win+R.
2. Type %Windir%\System32\drivers\etc\hosts in the empty line and press Enter.
3. Select Notepad.
4. Check all entries and remove the z.moatads.com entry if you find it there.
5. Save the changes.

In non-techie terms:

Moatads is an advertising server that might start showing annoying commercial advertisements on your screen. This usually happens when users install an untrustworthy program on their PCs and it modifies the hosts file located in %Windir%\System32\drivers\etc. Theoretically, you could have been presented with these ads after opening a bad website too. In such a case, it will be enough to close the website and never visit the same page again.