"Powered by Quick Ref" virus uninstall guide

What is Quick Ref?

Quick Ref is a advertising application which purpose is to display diffirent kinds of advertisements around web pages:

Example of advertisement

Quick Ref belongs to Vitruvian family of malware and can be named by different malware scanners also as:

• Adware.Vitruvian (Gridinsoft Trojan Killer) 
• InfoAtoms (fs)
• Adware.Plugin
• Win32/Adware.Vitruvian
• PUP.Optional.QuickRef

How to figure out that your computer is infected with Quick Ref?

Here are some symptoms that indicate that your computer is infected with Quick Ref:

• you see any kind of "deals" along with your search results;
• you have seen at least one of the following icons on your computer or in your browsers:
  
• at least one of the following folders is present on your computer: 
• C:\Program Files\QuickRef_1.10.0.9
• C:\Program Files\QuickRef_1.10.0.8
• at least one of the following registry items is present on your computer:
• HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\QuickRef_1.10.0.9
• HKLM\SOFTWARE\QuickRef_1.10.0.9
• HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\qrnfd_1_10_0_9
• HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\QuickRef_1.10.0.8
• HKLM\SOFTWARE\QuickRef_1.10.0.8
• HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\qrnfd_1_10_0_8
• at least one of the following files is running on your computer:
  • qrsvc.exe
  • quickref-setup-1.10.0.9.exe
  • qrnfd_1_10_0_9.sys
  • quickref-setup-1.10.0.8.exe
  • qrnfd_1_10_0_8.sys
• at least one of the following services is present on your computer:
  • qrnfd_1_10_0_9
  • qrnfd_1_10_0_8
  • qrsvc_1.10.0.9
  • qrsvc_1.10.0.8
• at least one file with the following MD5 hashes is present on your computer:
  • F3691F550243DDE88A812F31010E07C9
  • 3ABBB4CD19A7722491ED0C03AA918A70
  • E7CAD26DC0977E52983A0CF8CF5C7328
  • AED31EB42516BD501FDDC3FA3F7F1F0F
  • 245BC099BE402867A7BCDD482FE5E55A

How to get rid of Quick Ref?

Follow this guide to remove Quick Ref from your computer completely.

Step 1.  Try to remove Quick Ref using tools of Windows operating system.

If you have installed Windows 8, press Start button on the screen or Windows button on your keyboard, start typing "programs and features" and choose "Programs and Features" in the appeared menu:

Programs and Features

If you are using Windows 7, press Start button and choose "Control panel": 

Windows 7 start menu

Look for Quick Ref in the list of installed programs, select it and press Uninstall button:

Quick Ref uninstall

Now reboot your computer and check the result. If the advertising is still present, please move to the next step.

Step 2. Remove Quick Ref completely using Gridinsoft Trojan Killer tool

Gridinsoft Trojan Killer is a powerful all-in-one tool aimed to kill diffirent kinds of malware. It has no analogues on the quality of malware and browser hijackers removal. Gridinsoft Trojan Killer also has professional support team that can resolve your problem remotely even though Trojan Killer didn't find any threat on your PC.

Please, follow the guide below to remove Quick Ref malware from your computer.

• Download Gridinsoft Trojan Killer malware removal solution setup from the download link: Trojan Killer download link

• Close all your programs and browsers
• Install Gridinsoft Trojan Killer and run it by double-clicking on the icon on your desktop 

  

  Trojan Killer icon on the desktop

• Run Standart scan using Scan tab of your Trojan Killer

  

  Scan tab of Trojan Killer

• After the scanning completed mark all items as Move to quarantine and press Apply button to remove all dangerous items from your computer. Reboot your PC if Trojan Killer asks about it:

  

  Example of scan results

• Now you have to clean all your browsers. Go to Tools tab and press Reset browser settings button:

  

  Tools tab of Trojan Killer

• Mark all your browsers as shown below and press Reset button:

  

  Resetting browser settings

• Reboot your PC and check the result

Now your computer should be cleaned of Quick Ref virus. If you still notice any signs of Quick Ref, please send your request to the Trojan Killer Support. Specialists from Gridinsoft will help you to remove any kind of threats.

Please, notice that Trojan Killer Support service is able for registred users only.