Cleardexchange Ads Removal Guide — How to Fix It?

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Cleardexchange pop-up alerts may appear out of the blue, covering the content of the page you visited or opening your browser when you don’t desire it to be opened.

Clicking on the Cleardexchange promotion can trigger the injection of different malware or unwanted programs. In this guide, you will see the guideline of Cleardexchange popups clearing in several manners, and also examining your PC for other viruses presence.

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What are Cleardexchange pop-ups?

Cleardexchange popups are an outcome of adware action. Adware is a kind of malware that shows you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click ads, which produces a major amount of earnings for adware representatives. These promotions might have explicit content, or have a web link to malevolent content/website, because adware maintainers have no reason to check the goodness of the material they are going to show – their single target is cash.

Cleardexchange push notification

Cleardexchange push notification.

Pop-up promotions itself is a good, affordable and also extremely successful advertising tool1. It makes it possible for the vendor to attach the buyers’ attention to their site, as well as the buyers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they wish to purchase. When the person will get a pop-up notification that the TV set he desires to buy is offered at the online shop he/she checked out previously with a 15% price cut, one will definitely use this possibility and get it. Considering the very low price for the popups and their targeting, such an advertising and marketing method is a favorite thing amidst the marketing departments of big internet stores.

Nonetheless, such a profitable strategy could not be missed by virus developers. Option to show the popup advertisements forcibly to the targets of malware invasion is a great basis for evil-minded tricks with the popup ads. And Cleardexchange.com ads is just one of hundreds that are “employed” in this system.

Here is a details for the Cleardexchange site
SiteCleardexchange.com
HostingAS15169 Google LLC
United States, Council Bluffs
Infection TypeAdware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address35.209.195.30
SymptomsAnnoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behaviorWebjustpush, Antivirusupdate, Courselivemother
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Cleardexchange virus?

There are a lot of methods of becoming infected by the adware that trigger the Cleardexchange popups storm. A lion’s part of this virus instances is after the free software or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Free software can likewise be downloaded from the main web page, and the adware is delivered as a legal bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A huge amount of people regularly work with the uncertain programs from untrusted providers: abandonware, various utilities that are free of cost, and even hacked programs. Every one of these types of applications are dangerous, because it is extremely easy to integrate a Cleardexchange malware under the cover of part of the license hacking script, or as a part of the self-made algoritm within the Windows optimization tool.

Cleardexchange popup malware may likewise be hidden in the ad somewhere on the odd web page. Such web pages are typically full of colorful and blinking ads, and their owners often accept any promos to be placed on their page. Therefore, clicking on such banners is a shot in the dark: only the ad contractor realizes what will occur when you click this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you may additionally receive something a lot more risky, like ransomware or coin miner; the big 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 undesirable programs, like Cleardexchange pop-up virus may cause a lot of problems on your PC. Distracting is not the single problem – pop-up notifications can display you the ads, where you are offered to get another dubious application, or “a amazing anti-malware tool”. Scareware is usually spread with the use of the last slogun. Potentially undesirable programs, in turn, can have spyware functions. And it is quite hard to distinguish the undesirable app from a normal one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the potentially unwanted programs and fake antiviruses, popup-related advertisements are also chosen as a spreading way by various trojan viruses, for example – coin miners. The consequences of activity of such viruses is 100% unpleasant, and can cost you hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not tapping these ads, they may be clicked by someone who also uses your personal computer – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the things can become much more serious, and it will be much harder to deal with it without information loss. It is recommended to wipe out the viruses with anti-malware programs as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Cleardexchange pop-up advertisements?

The tutorial of Cleardexchange adware clearing contains 2 parts. Initially, we need to remove the malware, and then correct the effects of its activity. The elimination procedure is quite simple, due to the fact that it can be executed even with using Microsoft Defender – anti-virus program that is available on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. Nevertheless, as a result of its large resources utilization, as well as some problems that may be crucial for some types of individuals, Defender is frequently disabled by the users, so its use is likely impossible. What’s more, different trojan viruses are capable to disable the embedded antivirus. It is far better to make use of the separated program that will not have such weakness.

I would certainly advise you to use Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven security device that will surely erase the malware from your personal computer and create an invulnerable cover with a Proactive protection feature. But let’s handle Cleardexchange adware first.

Removing Cleardexchange 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 Cleardexchange 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 make sure that your browser will definitely connect the correct DNS while connecting to the web page you need. Make a text file named “hosts” on your pc’s desktop, then open it and fill it with the following lines3:

# 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.

Nonetheless, there is one issue that makes the things much more difficult to fix, specifically without the anti-malware software. The majority of adware variants that are utilized to show you the Cleardexchange pop-up advertisements are altering the deep browser settings, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you try to change your browser settings after your PC was infected by pop-up-related malware, your browser will crash soon. Sometimes, you will see no crash, however, large lag spike after pressing the “settings” key. Browser will stop reacting for ~ 30 seconds, and afterwards it will be back to the normal, until you try to open settings once 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 Cleardexchange Pop-ups?

Name: Cleardexchange

Description: Cleardexchange - 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 Cleardexchange.com push notifications?” or “why do Cleardexchange.com pop-ups keep appearing on Chrome even after AdBlock installation?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with Cleardexchange 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 advertisements on Wikipedia.
  2. GridinSoft Anti-Malware overview and also the reasons why I advise 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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