Traffic Exchange

Posted by Lisa Blanc on November 15, 2016

What is Traffic Exchange?

Did you install Traffic Exchange yourself or did it enter your operating system without your permission? Considering that this potentially unwanted program (PUP) does not have an official installer and that it is usually spread via third-party installers, it is very likely that you will find it installed illegally. Our research team at Anti-Spyware-101.com has also discovered that this suspicious program is capable of infiltrating silently, which might make it difficult for you to find and remove it. Needless to say, a program that slithers in silently, without your permission must be recognized as potentially unreliable and dangerous. If you need more reasons to delete Traffic Exchange from your Windows operating system, you should continue reading this report. If you have questions regarding the PUP or its elimination after you are done reading, please leave them in the comments section below. test test

How does Traffic Exchange work?

When Traffic Exchange is installed on your computer, you find it in the “Uninstall a program” and “Add or Remove Programs” menus. The product information represented via these menus shows links to traffic.io or online.io. If you are introduced to online.io, it is most likely that you will find “Online.io Application” instead of Traffic Exchange, but both of these programs are identical, and the names are different because they represent different versions. Although neither of the sites provides us with useful information, our research team has managed to discover online.io/legal/privacy.html. This page represents the Privacy Policy that was prepared by Microleaves Limited. Are you familiar with this company? It is most likely that you are not because it sells proxy services, which is not something that regular computer users are concerned with. According to our research, Microleaves can spread the PUP silently by adding it to malicious installers that might carry different programs packaged together. Because there is a possibility that malware has invaded your operating system, we strongly advise using a malware scanner to inspect it. Hopefully, the scanner does not detect other threats that require removal, and you can focus on the PUP.

After analyzing the Privacy Policy of Traffic Exchange, it has become clear that this potentially unwanted program is installed onto computers silently to spy on their owners. Tracking cookies, pixel tags, and web beacons can be employed to record information, and, unfortunately, it could be shared with unknown parties as well. Although it appears that your personal information is safe if you do not disclose it, you could be tricked into doing it. Also, if you choose to “purchase premium services” – and it is a complete mystery what these premium services are or how they could be introduced to you – Microleaves reserves the right to record your credit card information and other sensitive data. Overall, if you do not want this suspicious company to record information about you without your knowledge, you should not let in clandestine PUPs. As you can probably guess, we recommend removing Traffic Exchange from your operating system, and you can learn how to do that by following the guide below.

How to delete Traffic Exchange

If you want to get rid of Traffic Exchange quickly, install an anti-malware tool that will automatically erase this potentially unwanted program along with all other active threats or undesirable software. The manual removal of this PUP is not straightforward, and so this option is not for those who are in a hurry or those who are inexperienced. As you can see by looking at the guide below, you will need to edit the Windows Registry and erase quite a few components. If you go into this task without having enough experience, you have to make sure that you follow the steps as instructed because you do not want to make any mistakes. If you do not want to take any risks, install an automated malware remover instead.

Removal Instructions

Launch Explorer by tapping Win+E keys.
Enter %PROGRAMFILES(x86)% (or %PROGRAMFILES%) into the bar at the top.
Right-click and Delete the folder named Microleaves.
Enter %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application Data\ into the bar and repeat step 3.
Enter %ALLUSERSPROFILE% into the bar and repeat step 3.
Enter %WINDIR%\Tasks\ (or %WINDIR%\System32\Tasks\) into the bar at the top.
Right-click and Delete the folder named Traffic Exchange* (the * symbolizes random characters).
Enter %WINDIR%\Installer\ into the bar at the top.
Right-click and Delete the folder named {438465C5-D78D-4958-B31D-60374B5042F4}.
Launch RUN by tapping Win+R keys.
Enter regedit.exe to launch Registry Editor.
Navigate to HKLM\SOFTWARE\ (or HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\).
Right-click and Delete the key named Microleaves.
Navigate to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\.
Right-click and Delete the key named {438465C5-D78D-4958-B31D-60374B5042F4}.