Help with annoying adware thing

Hello!

I have Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 and I run AIG which is an online aircraft livery program. This is on Win11 Pro, using only MS Defender. Some of the liveries require a manual install, where the AIG Controller directs you to a site to download the livery manually. Anyway, with that as the background, I selected the option to manually install a livery only to be redirected onto an apparently dodgy site. The site flashed a few blank pages which indicated that I was being redirected. Almost immediately, a message popped up in the bottom right of my screen warning I have a virus and must click a button to clean. Now I'm not an idiot, was not going to click that button. Then I would no doubt have a virus! This message continually came up even when I closed the browser and rebooted. The message had yowa.co.in as the issue.

So what I did:
Went into Notification Settings - disabled the notification for yowa.co.in. It was the top entry. Rebooted. That seemed to stop the incessant warning message boxes.
Went into Edge and cleared all cookies (yowa.co.in) was in there.
Ran a Quick Scan using MS Defender - no reported issues.
Ran Regedit, searched yowa.co.in and found three entries. Deleted all three reg Keys entirely. (Note CCleaner Pro did not pick these up as issued when I ran the Registry Scan first).
Added yowa.co.in to the blocked list for saving and reading cookies.

I think I have gotten rid of it. Any other ideas to check and be sure? I really don't want to be installing more stuff like Malware Bytes to scan the PC. I doubt it is malware, just annoying adware running through MS Edge.

Thanks

Greg H said:

I really don't want to be installing more stuff like Malware Bytes to scan the PC.

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Hi, Greg.
If I was concerned, I’d be ready to install 10 different things if I needed to. Malwarebites uninstalls as easy as it installs as far as I know. Peace of mind?

@antspants advice is the most sensible you will get from anyone. Do what you gotta do and run MWB Free. Free Antivirus 2023 | Download Free Antivirus & Virus Scan | 100% Free & Easy Install

While you're at it also on that same site, scroll down the page. Download and run Adwcleaner

glasskuter said:

Adwcleaner

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Is really good.

Thanks all - and your point is well taken @antspants.

When I built this PC (quite recently) I swore to myself that I would avoid installing anything "extra" and keep it clean and light. Only really use it for flight simming. But yeah, I think I might need to lower my self-imposed restriction a little to be safe. Out of interest, I have since had comms from the developer of AIG and the download site I was directed to is suspected to have been taken over by bad actors. Apparently, this particular site is hosted in Ukraine, may have been abandoned due to the ongoing war. AIG is addressing this and removing this download option for the time being.

Consider using Malwarebytes Browser Guard - an Edge Add-on.

Greg H said:

When I built this PC (quite recently) I swore to myself that I would avoid installing anything "extra"

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Greg, there is one piece of software that I would encourage you to install, that is REVO Uninstaller Free Edition.

If you have REVO as a staple software, you can remove anything extra that you might want to uninstall, or that you may of needed to install. And REVO will delete all traces of the app/software that you are removing.

As an added bonus, it can also remove unwanted APPS that Microsoft installs by default if you so desire it to. These apps are listed as is anything installed.

The free version works well, the paid version you will read, does a little extra.
It is a well regarded software in this forum.

Be sure you use the REVO "scan for leftovers”. The registry entries it marks are safe to remove, at lease I nor anyone else I have read to date, has complained about it.

Thanks so much! I must definitely give REVO a shot. Always facinated/annoyed at how much junk is left behind when running an uninstaller. I removed MSI Centre (only used it to set up RGB lighting) and when I uninstalled it, it left files and folders all over the place! That is why one thing I did pay for is CCleaner Pro. I know to be careful with it and don't let it do anything automatically, but it can be useful to hunt down orphaned registry entries that uninstallers seem never to remove. If a free app like CCleaner works well, always happy to pay for the full version to get full benefit. I have downloaded the Adwcleaner as suggested and fortunately if gave me a clean bill of health after my little "incident" yesterday.