Defender-pro-2022.xyz Ads Removal Guide — How to Fix It?

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Defender-pro-2022.xyz pop-up notices can show up out of the blue, covering the post of the page you checked or opening your web browser when you do not want it to be opened.

Clicking on the Defender-pro-2022.xyz advertisement can trigger the injection of different malware or unwanted programs. In this post, you will see the tutorial of Defender-pro-2022.xyz popups removal in various methods, as well as inspecting your computer for other malware presence.

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What are Defender-pro-2022.xyz pop-ups?

Defender-pro-2022.xyz popups are an effect of adware activity. Adware is a kind of malware that demonstrates to you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click ads, which generates a massive amount of earnings for adware representatives. These ads may contain sometimes shocking content, or have a link to harmful content/website, considering that adware maintainers have no reason to check the goodness of the web content they are going to show – their solitary target is money.

Defender-pro-2022.xyz push notification

Defender-pro-2022.xyz push notification.

Pop-up promotions itself is a good, low-priced and extremely effective advertising solution1. It permits the seller to attach the customers’ attention to their site, as well as the buyers to receive the dynamic updates on the goods they wish to purchase. When the person will receive a pop-up notification that the TV set he likes to purchase is offered at the online shop he/she visited previously with a 15% price cut, one will surely use this opportunity and get it. Taking into consideration the exceptionally small cost for the popups and their targeting, such a marketing method is a favorite thing amidst the advertising teams of big internet stores.

Nevertheless, such a rewarding plan could not be missed by malware creators. Potential to show the popup ads by force to the people of malware attack is an ideal basis for malicious tricks with the popup promotions. And Defender-pro-2022.xyz advertisements is just one of hundreds that are “employed” in this system.

Here is a details for the Defender-pro-2022.xyz site
SiteDefender-pro-2022.xyz
HostingAS13335 Cloudflare, Inc.
United States, San Francisco
Infection TypeAdware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address104.21.21.183
SymptomsAnnoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behaviorTogainarep, Utationforh, Tskipadz
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Defender-pro-2022.xyz virus?

There are a huge amount of methods of becoming infected by the adware that result in the Defender-pro-2022.xyz popups storm. A lion’s part of this virus cases is after the free software or cracked programs, that are distributed on the peering networks. Free software can likewise be downloaded from the main site, and the adware is provided as a legal bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A plenty of users often work with the unreliable programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, different utilities that are free of cost, or perhaps hacked programs. Every one of these types of software are dangerous, since it is very easy to build in a Defender-pro-2022.xyz malware under the cover of part of the license hacking script, or as a component of the self-made algoritm within the Windows optimization tool.

Defender-pro-2022.xyz popup malware may additionally be concealed in the promotion somewhere on the unusual website. Such websites are typically filled with intense and blinking advertisements, and their owners often accept any type of promos to be placed on their page. For this reason, clicking such banners is a shot in the dark: only the advertisement provider knows what will occur when you click this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you may likewise receive something a lot more dangerous, like ransomware or coin miner; the big share of coin miners circulation is exactly after the malicious advertisements.

People dislike popups

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

Potentially undesirable applications, like Defender-pro-2022.xyz popup virus can provoke a wide range of different troubles on your PC. Distracting is not the only effect – pop-ups can present you the advertisements, where you are offered to download one more strange application, or “a perfect security tool”. Scareware is often distributed with the last slogun. Potentially unwanted programs, in turn, may 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 potentially unwanted programs and dubious antiviruses, popup-related banners are also exploited as a distribution way by various trojan viruses, for example – coin miners. The consequences of activity of such malware is 100% unpleasant, and can cost you several hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not clicking these advertisements, they can be clicked by whoever who also makes use of 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 data and money loss. It is recommended to eliminate the viruses with anti-malware programs as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Defender-pro-2022.xyz pop-up advertisements?

The tutorial of Defender-pro-2022.xyz adware clearing contains 2 sections. First, we need to deal with the malware, and after that correct the consequences of its activity. The removal task is really simple, since it can be performed even with making use of Microsoft Defender – anti-malware tool that is available on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. Nevertheless, due to its huge resources consumption, as well as some defects that may be critical for some types of individuals, Defender is often disabled by the users, so its utilization is likely impossible. Furthermore, a wide range of trojan viruses can switch off the embedded antivirus. It is better to make use of the separated program that will not have such vulnerabilities.

I’d suggest you to use Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven antivirus tool that will certainly erase the malware from your computer and make an invulnerable cover with a Proactive protection function. However, let’s deal with Defender-pro-2022.xyz adware initially.

Removing Defender-pro-2022.xyz 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 Defender-pro-2022.xyz 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 browsers are reset, you need to make sure that your browser will definitely connect the right DNS while connecting to the website you want. Create a text file titled “hosts” on your pc’s desktop, then open it and fill it with the following content3:

# 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 a lot more difficult to restore, especially without the anti-malware software. The majority of adware variants that are utilized to show you the Defender-pro-2022.xyz pop-up promotions are adjusting the deep browser settings, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you try to change your browser settings after your machine was infected by pop-up-related malware, your browser will certainly crash soon. Sometimes, you will see no crash, however, significant lag spike after pushing the “settings” key. Browser will stop reacting for ~ 30 secs, and afterwards it will be back to the normal, up until you try 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 Defender-pro-2022.xyz Pop-ups?

Name: Defender-pro-2022.xyz

Description: Defender-pro-2022.xyz - 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 Defender-pro-2022.xyz push notifications?” or “why do Defender-pro-2022.xyz pop-ups keep appearing on Chrome even after AdBlock installation?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with Defender-pro-2022.xyz 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 the reasons why I advise it for malware removal.
  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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