2022-10-20
Mail.ru software is more than just a mail service, cloud storage, and search engine. It is often a whole set of additional tools that get into your computer when you install mail and change browser settings (Спутник@Mail.Ru, Поиск@Mail.Ru, Агент@Mail.Ru, ICQ, and more). Installation together with free utility of others and appendices is quite widespread. And mail.ru is no exception.
When downloading the licensed program you should be offered a choice: quick installation (with all the "add-ons") or selective installation (only those components the user needs). A rogue utility will bring all additional applications to the computer, regardless of the selected settings. Should this happen, uninstalling mail.ru and all its products is the only way out.
Content :
Removal of programs
In order to remove programs you no longer need but have been "sent" by Mail.Ru, you must:
- Go to the "Start" menu.
- Lock the "Control Panel".
- Go to the "Add/Remove Programs" section.
- Browse to the list of programs present on your PC and select those related to mail.ru and remove them.
Complete processes in Task Manager and remove folders
If unwanted programs are running in the background, you cannot get rid of them by the method described above. To remove them from your PC you will need to enter Task Manager and exit the process.
- The key combination CTRL+ALT+DELETE is used to call Task Manager.
- In the Task Manager window you should enter the Processes section and locate a running mail.ru application.
- Right click the desired process to open the folder where the program file is located.
- Close the process by clicking on the "Remove task" and delete the file in the folder.
In this way you should end all the unwanted processes one by one and remove the executable programs.
Clearing the Temp
Deleasing mail.net is a very time consuming process because some components of the application do not disappear from the system even after you remove programs and remove tasks. They continue to exist in a temporary folder called "Temp". To remove them from there you need:
- In the C:\ drive, open the "Users" folder and find the directory with the username.
- In this directory, open the following sequence of folders: "AppData" / "Local" / "Temp".
- Uninstall all the /files present in the folder "Temp".
Checking the remaining /files
In order to remove mail.ru from the computer without any residue, a third party program called CCleaner is needed. It should be installed from the official site, start it and do the following actions:
- In the program window enter "Tools" and then "Autorun". Here you will see the components from Mail.Ru which are automatically launched on PC reboot. Disable them and remove all processes from the Startup screen.
- While performing the actions above, please make sure that you have cleaned everything. To do that go to the "Clean Up" tab and click on the "Analyze" button and, once the process has finished, the "Clean Up" button.
- For the repair of registry errors you should go to the "Registry" tab, click on "Find problems" and then on "Fix". In the opened "Application Path Errors" window click on "Fix Marked".
Remove mail.ru items from browsers
Unwanted components modify the browsers settings in order to impose different unwanted services on the users. Thus, the start page is changed to the mail search engine, which is quite inconvenient. When all the malware has been removed you can do away with this nuisance by changing the start page.
To do this in the Mozilla Firefox browser you should:
- Go to the "Settings" menu;
- open the "General" item;
- choose the desired start page as the most frequently used one.
Changing the start page in Google Chrome is quite easy too:
- open "Settings";
- add the desired page to the list of your start pages and remove the malicious link;
- Enter the address of the frequently used site;
- Click "OK".
Mail.ru visual bookmark removal from the browser
Mail.ru software embeds visual bookmarks and panels in the browser in the form of extensions besides the appearance of the start page. As a result, when you open the browser (be it Chrome, Opera or Firefox) the start page appears with a search for mail and a host of unnecessary tools that mail.ru aggressively imposes.
Let us look at how to remove the search box and the visual bookmarks from your browser using Google Chrome as an example:
- Open Chrome.
- Menu (three vertical dots in the top right corner) > Advanced Tools > Advanced Tools .
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- Find all mentions of Mail.ru and other questionable extensions not installed by the user himself.
- Deactivate the extension by clicking on Remove . You can temporarily deactivate the extension by moving the slider to the left.
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The second method of deleting visual bookmarks is useful if you have failed to remove the extension in the usual way. You can force this action through the free application Malwarebytes AdwCleaner.
- Download Malwarebytes AdwCleaner on your PC.
- Run the program and click Scan Now .
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- As a result of the scan, the Scan results window will display a list of adware modules and viruses.
- In the PUP.Optional.Legacy branch locate Mail.ru Visual bookmarks, check the box. Click on Next .
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- To remove to Quarantine (secure isolated storage) click Quarantine and Continue .
- After PC reboot visual bookmarks will disappear.
How to remove mail.ru products completely
All other mail.ru products are brought to your computer by [email protected] In addition it actively prevents the user to return all the previous system settings. Therefore [email protected] needs to be deactivated and removed. Let's see how to do this.
- First of all, all mail.ru components except [email protected] must be removed from the system as described above.
- On the desktop right click on the "Computer" icon, select "Manage", then "Services". In the list of services indicate [email protected], right click on it and open the "Properties" tab. There, in the "General" section, set the startup type to "Disabled" and click "Stop". Confirm action by clicking on "Apply" and "Ok".
- Open the "Task Manager" and locate the process guardmailru.exe. Terminate it by clicking the right mouse button.
- Afterwards uninstall [email protected] as well as all other programs.
- Find the remaining programs. To do this press "Start", then "Find Programs and Files" and enter mail.ru in the search line. Delete all the /files and folders that appear.
- Clear the registry. This is also done via "Start" / "Find programs and /files". In the search line you should enter the text regedit - this command will open the editor. You will need to find the "Edit" item, open the search line by clicking "Find" and type mail.ru into it. All sections that appear should be deleted. Then type in the search box and repeat the above steps.
For a 100% result it is recommended to reset your browsers to their initial settings.
How to delete mail.ru
If you want to get rid of mail.ru including your mailbox you should contact the administration, it is at their discretion to remove it.
Firstly you should log in to your account. Then go to the Preferences menu and look for "Personal Data". For the administration to consider the request to delete the mailbox, a reason must be given when writing the request. Confirming the form by entering the password again. The application processing and mailbox deletion takes about 5 working days.
