How can I get rid of "Strong Signal" and its associated ads?

  • 3 March 2015
  • 1 reply
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This product and ads should be reclassified as malware.  Any way to to Webroot Secure Anywhere to get rid of them?  I tred Malwarebytes, but it didn't get rid of them.  Any help appreciated, especially simple methods.  In a related area, is Acer Portal bloatware?  Any good reason not to delete it?  Thanks!
  

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This product and ads should be reclassified as malware.  Any way to to Webroot Secure Anywhere to get rid of them?  I tred Malwarebytes, but it didn't get rid of them.  Any help appreciated, especially simple methods.  In a related area, is Acer Portal bloatware?  Any good reason not to delete it?  Thanks!
  
Hello Walt,
 
Welcome to the Community Forum,
 
First I'm not familar with Acer Portal bloatware. My best advice would be to do a search on the Acer Website looking to see if this program is important or not. Sometimes you can get rid of bloatware on a system but you need to be careful when doing so.
 
I would go into my Control Panel/Programs/Add Remove/Uninstall any games or toolbars that you don't need. Now for the problems with thee popup advertisements..
 
Strong Signal is advertised as a program that displays coupons for sites you are visiting and competitive prices when you are viewing product pages at sites like Amazon. Though this may sound like a useful service, the Strong Signal program can be intrusive and will display ads whether you want them to or not.
 
What you are seeing and describing is what we on the Community refer to as a PUA. (Potentially Unwanted Application)These are very annoying at best in that they cause pop-us, redirect your browser home page, and other behavior that may slow down the computer and direct ads your way, but they are not actually doing anything bad like damaging files or stealing information. Often they are installed intentionally by you the user as browser add-ons for various tasks such as quick search tools.. but they also come with the result of added annoying pop-ups and ads. Other times they 'piggy back' with other software that you installed, or try to 'sneak' onto your system entirely.
 
WSA does detect and remove many PUA's, and more are being added, but WSA does not detect all of them. A simple browser add-on with PUA behavior that is easy to identify and easy to remove is not likely to be detected and removed by WSA. Those that are intentionally difficult to locate and remove are. Please see THIS LINK for more information regarding Webroot's stance on these annoying programs.
 
The best thing to do is to submit a Trouble Ticket and ask Webroot Support to take a look and remove these for you.  There is NO CHARGE for this for valid WSA license holder.
 
Also, we have had a lot of discussion regarding these recently, and I have posted an Idea for Webroot to consider asking them to increase PUA detection.  The more  users that need help removing a particular PUA the more likely and faster that PUA will be added to detection.
 
 
Hope this helps and please let us know if this was resolved or not.
 
Kindf Regards,
 
 
 

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