Remove Browse-defense Virus — How to Fix Guide

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Browse-defense pop-up notices may show up out of the blue, covering the material of the website you went to or opening your browser when you don’t want it to be opened.

Clicking the Browse-defense advertisement may cause the injection of different malware or unwanted programs. In this article, you will see the guideline of Browse-defense popups removal in several manners, and also checking your computer for extra malware presence.

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What are Browse-defense pop-ups?

Browse-defense popups are a consequence of adware presence. Adware is a sort of malware that suggests you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click promotions, which creates a major volume of income for adware distributors. These promotions may have sometimes shocking information, or have a link to harmful content/website, since adware maintainers have no reason to examine the goodness of the content they are going to reveal – their single target is money.

Browse-defense push notification

Browse-defense push notification.

Pop-up promotions itself is a good, low-cost and also really efficient advertising instrument1. It allows the seller to link the buyers’ attention to their website, and the buyers to receive the dynamic updates on the goods they wish to purchase. When the customer will receive a pop-up alert that the TV set he desires to buy is available at the online store he/she checked out previously with a 15% discount, one will surely use this chance and buy it. Considering the incredibly small cost for the popups and their targeting, such a marketing method is a favorite thing among the marketing teams of huge internet retail stores.

Nevertheless, such a successful plan could not be missed by malware developers. Potential to demonstrate the popup advertisements forcibly to the people of malware invasion is an excellent basis for malicious manipulations with the popup ads. And Browse-defense.com promotions is one of hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Here is a details for the Browse-defense
SiteBrowse-defense.com
HostingAS59253 Leaseweb Asia Pacific pte. ltd.
Singapore, Singapore
Infection TypeAdware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address23.106.248.15
SymptomsAnnoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behaviorNews, Nonspewpa, Cales
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Browse-defense virus?

There are a huge amount of ways of getting contaminated by the adware that create the Browse-defense popups tornado. A lion’s part of this malware cases is after the free software or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Free software may likewise be downloaded from the official website, and the adware is delivered as a legitimate bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A number of individuals regularly use the uncertain programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, a wide range of apps that are free, or even hacked programs. All of these kinds of programs are unsafe, since it is quite simple to build in a Browse-defense malware under the guise of part of the license hacking script, or as a component of the self-made algoritm within the Windows optimization tool.

Browse-defense popup malware may likewise be concealed in the advertisement somewhere on the odd web page. Such web pages are typically packed with bright and blinking ads, and their proprietors usually accept any promotions to be placed on their page. For this reason, clicking on such banners is a shot in the dark: only the advertisement provider realizes what will happen when you click this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you may additionally receive something far more unsafe, like ransomware or coin miner; the large share of coin miners distribution is exactly after the malicious ads.

People dislike popups

The statistic shows that people dislike popup advertising more than other types of promotions

Potentially unwanted applications, like Browse-defense popup virus may provoke a lot of troubles on your personal computer. Distracting is not the only effect – pop-ups may present you the promotions, where you are offered to download one more unknown application, or “a perfect security tool”. Scareware is usually distributed with the use of the last motto. Potentially undesirable programs, in turn, can have spyware functionality. And it is quite hard to distinguish the unwanted app from a normal one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the PUPs and dubious antiviruses, popup-related banners are also exploited as a spreading method by different trojan viruses, for example – coin miners. The consequences of activity of such viruses is 100% unwanted, and can cost you hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not tapping these banners, they can be clicked by someone who also makes use of your computer – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the situation can become much more serious, and it will be much harder to solve it without data loss. It is recommended to remove the viruses with anti-malware applications as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Browse-defense pop-up advertisements?

The manual of Browse-defense adware clearing includes 2 sections. First, we need to remove the malware, and then repair the results of its activity. The removal task is pretty easy, due to the fact that it can be executed even with making use of Microsoft Defender – anti-virus tool that is available on all computers with Windows 8/10. Nevertheless, as a result of its large resources consumption, as well as some errors that can be crucial for some categories of users, Defender is often turned off by the users, so its utilization is most likely impossible. What’s more, a variety of trojan viruses have the ability to switch off the embedded antivirus. It is better to use the separated program that will not have such weakness.

I would certainly suggest you to use Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven antivirus device that will certainly exterminate the viruses from your PC and create an invulnerable cover with a Proactive protection feature. But let’s deal with Browse-defense adware first.

Removing Browse-defense popup virus with GridinSoft Anti-Malware

  • Download and install GridinSoft Anti-Malware. After the installation, you will be offered to perform the Standard Scan. Approve this action.
  • Gridinsoft Anti-Malware during the scan process

  • Standard scan checks the logical disk where the system files are stored, together with the files of programs you have already installed. The scan lasts up to 6 minutes.
  • GridinSoft Anti-Malware scan results

  • When the scan is over, you may choose the action for each detected virus. For all files of Browse-defense malware the default option is “Delete”. Press “Apply” to finish the malware removal.
  • GridinSoft Anti-Malware - After Cleaning

Now, when the computer is clean of viruses, we can proceed to the browser reset. You can do this step manually, as well as with the use of GridinSoft Anti-Malware.

Reset browser settings to default

Manual method of browser reset

To reset Edge, do the following steps :
  1. Open “Settings and more” tab in upper right corner, then find here “Settings” button. In the appeared menu, choose “Reset settings” option :
  2. Reseting the Edge browser

  3. After picking the Reset Settings option, you will see the following menu, stating about the settings which will be reverted to original :
For Mozilla Firefox, do the next actions :
  1. Open Menu tab (three strips in upper right corner) and click the “Help” button. In the appeared menu choose “troubleshooting information” :
  2. The first step to revert Mozilla Firefox

  3. In the next screen, find the “Refresh Firefox” option :
  4. The second step of Firefox restoration
    After choosing this option, you will see the next message :
    The last step for Firefox
If you use Google Chrome
  1. Open Settings tab, find the “Advanced” button. In the extended tab choose the “Reset and clean up” button :
  2. In the appeared list, click on the “Restore settings to their original defaults” :
  3. Finally, you will see the window, where you can see all the settings which will be reset to default :
Opera can be reset in the next way
  1. Open Settings menu by pressing the gear icon in the toolbar (left side of the browser window), then click “Advanced” option, and choose “Browser” button in the drop-down list. Scroll down, to the bottom of the settings menu. Find there “Restore settings to their original defaults” option :

  2. After clicking the “Restore settings…” button, you will see the window, where all settings, which will be reset, are shown :

When the web browsers are reset, you need to ensure that your browser will connect the appropriate DNS while connecting to the web page you want. Make a text file titled “hosts” on your desktop, then open it and fill it with the following text3:

# Copyright (c) 1993-2006 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a ‘#’ symbol.
#
# For example:
#
# 102.54.94.97 rhino.acme.com # source server
# 38.25.63.10 x.acme.com # x client host
# localhost name resolution is handle within DNS itself.
# 127.0.0.1 localhost
# ::1 localhost

Find the hosts.txt file in C:/Windows/System32/drivers/etc directory. Rename this file to “hosts.old.txt” (to distinguish it from the new one), and then move the file you created on the desktop to this folder. Remove the hosts.old from this folder. Now you have your hosts file as good as new.

However, there is one problem that makes things a lot harder to fix, especially without the anti-malware software. A lot of adware versions that are used to show you the Browse-defense pop-up promotions are altering the deep browser setups, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you attempt to fix your browser settings after your system was infected by pop-up-related malware, your browser will crash quickly. In certain cases, you will see no crash, but large lag spike after pressing the “settings” key. Browser will stop responding for ~ 30 secs, and after that it will be back to the normal, until you attempt to open settings again.

Reset your browser settings with GridinSoft Anti-Malware

To reset your browser with GridinSoft Anti-Malware, open the Tools tab, and click the “Reset browser settings” button.

Tools tab in GridinSoft Anti-Malware

You can see the list of the options for each browser. By default, they are set up in the manner which fits the majority of users. Press the “Reset” button (lower right corner). In a minute your browser will be as good as new.

Reset Browser Settings tab in GridinSoft Anti-Malware

The browser reset is recommended to perform through the antivirus tool by GridinSoft, because last is also able to reset the HOSTS file without any additional commands.

How to Remove Browse-defense Pop-ups?

Name: Browse-defense

Description: Browse-defense - a lot of users became a target for the pop-up advertisements. I have a lot of friends who literally bombed me with the questions like “how to remove Browse-defense.com push notifications?” or “why do Browse-defense.com pop-ups keep appearing on Chrome even after AdBlock installation?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with Browse-defense pop-ups, which may corrupt your browser’s correct performance, and create a lot of troubles while you are working.

Operating System: Windows

Application Category: Adware

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References

  1. More about pop-up ads on Wikipedia.
  2. GridinSoft Anti-Malware review and also the reasons why I suggest it for malware elimination.
  3. Official Microsoft guide for hosts file reset.

About the author

Wilbur Woodham

I was a technical writer from early in my career, and consider IT Security one of my foundational skills. I’m sharing my experience here, and I hope you find it useful.

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