Highlighted Words Counter is a deceptive browser extension for Chrome. Highlighted Words Counter modifies web browser settings (displays intrusive worthless advertisements) and collects various information relating to the user’s internet browsing activity. For these specific deceptive reasons, Highlighted Words Counter is categorized as adware.

Many favorite download websites that offer download managers monetize their free software and internet traffic thru download-managers. It’s these download managers that use deceptive and dangerous adware deployments and start displaying advertisements on favorite websites with hyperlinks underlined as “ad by Highlighted Words Counter.”

Once the Highlighted Words Counter adware application has infected the computer, the Highlighted Words Counter collect’s browser’s Internet Explorer, Google Chrome or Firefox preferences. This deceptive technique will load Highlighted Words Counter’s adware browser extension each time the browser is started. These malicious browser extensions are known to overwhelm computer users with intrusive advertisements within the browser.

The advertisements shown by Highlighted Words Counter are not random, the ads are based on user’s internet activity, the content of the website user is of were visiting and user-based interests. Highlighted Words Counter advertisements are to be distinguished by underlined text or new pop-up window redirects.

How did Highlighted Words Counter install on my PC?

Highlighted Words Counter is known for all kinds of suspicious and deceptive advertisements within the search results. These in-text, or pop-up ads may cause more harm to your computer as they might link to malware and adware download managers.

Highlighted Words Counter is all about in-text advertisements, website traffic, and suspicious links, browser extensions, and browser redirects. Adware such as Highlighted Words Counter, often claims to have no control over the users’ advertisements. In our experience, many of these in-text links lead to suspicious websites, technical support scam services, download managers and pay per click advertisements.

How to avoid Highlighted Words Counter?

If you install software downloaded from the internet, take notice there are no additional offers or useful enhancements installed on your computer. Some download managers do not adequately disclose that adware or pups, such as this Highlighted Words Counter will also be installed on your computer. When installing software on your computer, you should overview the End User License Agreements (EULA) or their Terms of Agreement before downloading and installing software onto your computer.

Do not click too fast through the installation process using a Quick Install of Next button; this would prevent Highlighted Words Counter in the future. Either way, it is often the computer user itself which allowed the Highlighted Words Counter adware browser extension infect the browser.

How to remove Highlighted Words Counter

Use this quick menu to quickly follow the steps to successfully clean your computer from Highlighted Words Counter, adware, potentially unwanted programs, any viruses, and spyware. This instruction includes both manual removal steps and malware removal tools to remove the Highlighted Words Counter malware leftovers.

Remove Highlighted Words Counter, complete the steps below

1. Remove Highlighted Words Counter from Windows manually without software
   • Uninstall recently installed adware using Windows Control Panel – Uninstall a program
   • Remove Highlighted Words Counter browser extension and ads from Google Chrome
   • Remove Highlighted Words Counter Browser Helper Object redirects from Internet Explorer
   • Remove Highlighted Words Counter browser extension, ads, and redirects from Firefox
2. Scan your computer for malware with free anti-malware software to detect and remove Highlighted Words Counter files
   • Automatically detect and remove the Highlighted Words Counter adware with Malwarebytes Free (recommended)
   • Remove Highlighted Words Counter adware, redirect with Zemana Anti-Malware free, restore your browser
   • Get rid of Highlighted Words Counter adware files with AdwCleaner Free

Windows 7 users: Click the Start button in the left bottom corner, select Control Panel, select “Programs and Features”.

Windows 8 and Windows 10 users: Right-click the Windows logo in the bottom left corner, select Control Panel, select “Programs and Features”.

Check the programs list for Highlighted Words Counter and select the entry and click “Uninstall” or “Remove“.
Click the column “Installed On” to sort installed software by date, this makes it easier to detect recently installed software.
If you don’t know what to look for, Goto Removal Tools

Windows 7 users: Click the Start button in the left bottom corner, select Control Panel, select "Programs and Features".

Windows 8 and Windows 10 users: Right-click the Windows logo in the bottom left corner, select Control Panel, select "Programs and Features".

Check the installed applications list for recently installed applications, select the application and click the uninstall button.
Select the column "Installed On" to sort installed applications by date, sorting the applications by date makes it easier for you to detect recently installed applications.
If you don't know what to look for, Goto Malware Removal Tool

Remove Highlighted Words Counter browser extension from Internet Explorer, Chrome or Firefox

In this first step, we show you how to manually remove Highlighted Words Counter adware from your browser and how to reset the browser homepage and search engine to default settings.

If after this step, there are still problems with a hijacked homepage, adware, ads or redirects in your browser, perform a malware scan with our recommended malware removal tools.

Remove malicious adware from Internet Explorer

select the wrench button,and from the menu select "Manage add-ons".

Check the add-ons list for any suspicious Browser Helper Objects, remove unwanted suspicious add-ons using the Remove or Disable button. If the button is grayed out, scan your computer with malware removal tools to remove the malicious add-on.

Reset your default Homepage and Search engine for Internet Explorer

The Internet Explorer has the option to reset to default. However, resetting your browser settings will affect your saved bookmarks and passwords.

select the wrench button and from the menu select "Internet Options".

Select "Advanced" from the tab menu, Click the Reset button.

Check "Delete personal settings" and click the Reset button.
Restart Internet Explorer for the changes to take effect.

Good, Internet Explorer is reset to the default configuration, it is important to know there are virus remnants on your computer. We recommend to scan and remove the virus files from your computer. Make sure the virus does not reinstall, and all remnants are removed from your PC.

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Remove adware, virus, browser hijacker and pop-up ad redirects from Google Chrome

select the menu button and from the menu select "More Tools" and then "Extensions".

Search for any unknown browser extension(s) from the list and remove them by using the trashcan icon.
Remove any browser extension that you do not know is very important.

• Continue to the next step, reset Chrome policies

Remove "installed by enterprise policy" setting or browser extension from Chrome

When a setting or browser is disabled because the setting is "installed by enterprise" you can use the instructions below to enable the setting and remove it.

• Open the Command Prompt by clicking the start menu button and typing "command prompt".
  Right-click the "Command Prompt" result and select "Run as Administrator".

Enter the following command's one byline and press enter after each line to execute the command.

• rd /S /Q "%WinDir%\System32\GroupPolicyUsers"
• rd /S /Q "%WinDir%\System32\GroupPolicy"
• GPupdate /force

• Continue to the next step, reset Chrome Synced profile

Reset your Chrome sync

Google Chrome sync your browser user-profile with their services. If the Google Chrome browser is infected with adware, this adware (usually browser extensions and the homepage and search engine settings) are synced with Google's servers.
It is important to clean this synced cache. If you don't clear the synced cache the adware, browser extensions and settings keep coming back on any devices the profile is synchronized with.

1. Open your Google Dashboard (opens in a new browser window). Make sure you are signed in to your Google Account (you are redirected to Google).
2. Click Reset sync to clear all of your synced data on Google's server.
3. Click OK.

• Continue to the next step, reset Google Chrome.

Reset your default Homepage and Search engine for Google Chrome

Chrome has the option to reset to default settings. However, resetting your browser settings will not affect your saved bookmarks and passwords.

select the menu button and from the menu select "Settings".

Scroll down to "Advanced" and again Scroll down to Reset settings.

Click the "Reset" button to Reset Google Chrome, a new dialog appears.

Confirm the Reset of the chrome settings by clicking the "Reset" button.
Restart Google Chrome for the changes to take effect.

• Continue to the next step Google Chrome Cleanup Tool

Chrome Cleanup Tool

The Chrome Clean-up tool is able to detect and remove chrome settings or browser extension(s) from the Chrome browser. Chrome Cleanup tool performs a scan for anything suspicious and removes it automatically from the browser.

Download Chrome Cleanup Utility

Start Chrome Cleanup Tool with right click and select Run as Administrator

Select Yes to Accept User Account Control

wait, searching for malicious programs

If malicious programs are found the Chrome Cleanup Tool will remove them for you.
Click Continue

After the scan, the Chrome Cleanup Tool will Reset the browser once again.
Click Reset to complete.

Google Chrome is reset to default settings, it is important to know there are remnants of malware on your computer. We recommend to scan and remove malware files from your computer to make sure the malware does not reinstall, and the malware is entirely removed from your PC.

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Remove malicious adware from Firefox (Quantum)

select the menu button and from the menu/list select "Add-ons".

Select Extensions from the left menu. Search any unknown Browser Extension(s) and remove it by clicking the Remove button.

Reset your default Homepage and Search engine for Firefox

The fastest and easiest way to reset your default homepage and the search engine is by resetting Firefox to default settings.

select the menu button and from the menu, select "Help ?" (the question mark icon, at the end of the menu).

select Troubleshooting information from the menu.

select the Refresh Firefox button, and confirm the Refresh Firefox dialog once again to Reset Firefox to default settings.
Click Finish, Firefox will restart.

The Firefox browser is reset to default, it is important to know there are remnants of malware on your computer. We recommend to scan and remove malware files from your computer to make sure the malware does not reinstall and the malware is entirely removed from the browser and PC.

1. Automatically detect and remove the Highlighted Words Counter adware with Malwarebytes Free (recommended)

Dear visitor, we advise anyone that has a problem with malware on their device to scan the device with Malwarebytes! We have run many malware removal tests on infected PCs including adware, potentially unwanted programs, and ransomware. Malwarebytes is by far the best malware removal tool available today. Malwarebytes is always free to remove any malware from your computer. Malwarebytes premium is active for a 14 days trial license upon installation. Try Malwarebytes and see the results for yourself!

Malwarebytes direct download (use right click "Save Link as")

Malwarebytes is the most powerful anti-malware solution to detect and proactively remove adware, browser hijackers, viruses and potentially unwanted programs from your device. Malwarebytes works excellently alongside antivirus software without any conflicts. Malwarebytes is by far the best malware detection and malware removal tool available today.

More information about Malwarebytes (opens a new window)

• Run the Malwarebytes installation setup file. Click here for detailed Malwarebytes installation instructions.
• Select Scan Now to perform an Anti-Malware scan.

• Malwarebytes is scanning the computer for any viruses, trojans, adware, spyware, ransomware, and potentially unwanted programs.
  Please wait for Malwarebytes to finish the anti-malware scan, the anti-malware scan usually takes around 2 to 5 minutes to complete.

• When the anti-malware scan is finished, Malwarebytes will show the results of the anti-malware scan.
  To remove the detected malware from your computer, select the Quarantine Selected button.

• All found malware will be moved to quarantine. Malwarebytes requires a reboot to complete the removal process.
• Restart your computer.

• After the reboot, all the malware detected by Malwarebytes is moved to quarantine. The removal process is finished.
• Continue to the next step

Some malware is known to block Malwarebytes from running. If you encounter this problem, run a malware scan with adwcleaner. After the adwcleaner malware scan, start a malware removal scan with Malwarebytes.

2. Remove Highlighted Words Counter with Zemana Anti-Malware free, restore your browser

Zemana Anti-Malware is an anti-malware scanner which uses the cloud for malware detection. Zemana is the fastest and most proactively malware scanner available. Zemana is its best in addition to a primary virus scanner.

Download Zemana Cloud Scanner

Buy Zemana Now with 30% discount

• Open the Zemana Anti-Malware installer
• Install Zemana Anti-Malware using the default settings
• Zemana Anti-Malware will update itself

• Select the Scan button to perform a malware scan
• Wait for the scan to finish, it takes a few minutes.

• Select the Next button to remove the malware found on your computer

• That's it. All malware is successfully removed from your computer.

• Continue to the next step

3. Delete Highlighted Words Counter adware files with AdwCleaner Free

Malwarebytes adwcleaner searches for adware, browser hijackers, malware files and removes the malware files for free.
The Malwarebytes adwcleaner removal tool will individually scan for malicious windows services, malware folders, malware files, shortcuts hijacked by adware, malware registry keys, windows scheduled tasks and malicious browser extensions. Best of all, adwcleaner is completely free.

Download AdwCleaner (opens in a new window)

• Right-click the AdwCleaner executable you just downloaded and select "Run as Administrator" this is important.
• Select the Scan Now button.

• Wait for the adware & malware scan to finish.
• Click the Clean & Repair button to remove the adware and malware from your PC.

• Wait for AdwCleaner to remove the adware and malware from your PC.
• Click the Clean & Restart Now button to finish the malware removal process.

• After the reboot, AdwCleaner shows a summary of the detected and removed malware files.

Optimize your device, get rid of junkware

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