Remove Defender-scan.xyz Pop-up Ads — How to Fix Gude

Defender-scan.xyz pop-up alerts can show up out of the blue, covering the content of the website you went to or opening your browser when you don’t wish it to be opened.

Clicking on the Defender-scan.xyz ad may cause the injection of different malware or unwanted programs. In this post, you will see the guide of Defender-scan.xyz popups removal in various methods, as well as examining your personal computer for extra viruses existence.

It is better to prevent, than repair and repent!

Removing Defender-scan.xyz manually may take hours and may damage your PC in the process. I recommend you to download GridinSoft Anti-Malware for threats removal. Allows to complete scan and cure your PC during the trial period.

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What are Defender-scan.xyz pop-ups?

Defender-scan.xyz popups are an effect of adware action. Adware is a kind of malware that shows you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click promotions, which generates a substantial amount of earnings for adware representatives. These promotions might have explicit material, or have a web link to malicious content/website, since adware maintainers have no reason to check the goodness of the content they are going to reveal – their single target is cash.

Defender-scan.xyz push notification.

Pop-up marketing itself is a very good, low-priced and also extremely efficient advertising solution¹. It makes it possible for the seller to attach the customers’ attention to their website, as well as the customers to receive the dynamic updates on the goods they intend to buy. When the customer will receive a pop-up alert that the TV set he desires to buy is offered at the online store he/she saw previously with a 15% price cut, one will definitely use this chance and get it. Considering the extremely low price for the popups and their targeting, such a promotion and marketing method is a favourite thing among the advertising teams of huge online sellers.

Nonetheless, such a profitable system could not be missed by virus creators. Option to demonstrate the popup advertisements forcibly to the victims of malware invasion is an excellent basis for malicious manipulations with the popup ads. And Defender-scan.xyz advertisements is just one of hundreds that are “employed” in this system.

Here is a summary for the Defender-scan.xyz site

How have I got the Defender-scan.xyz virus?

There are a plenty of ways of getting infected by the adware that cause the Defender-scan.xyz popups storm. A lion’s part of this malware instances is after the free software or cracked programs, that are distributed on the peering networks. Free software may also be downloaded from the official website, and the adware is delivered as a legal bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A huge amount of people often work with the uncertain programs from untrusted providers: abandonware, various apps that are free, and even hacked programs. Every one of these types of applications are risky, since it is quite easy to build in a Defender-scan.xyz malware under the cover of part of the license hacking script, or as a component of the self-made algoritm inside of the Windows optimization tool.

Defender-scan.xyz popup malware can likewise be hidden in the advertisement somewhere on the strange website. Such websites are generally loaded with intense and blinking ads, and their owners typically approve any kind of promotions to be published on their page. Therefore, clicking on such banners is a shot in the dark: only the ad provider knows what will happen when you click this ad. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you can additionally receive something far more damaging, like ransomware or coin miner; the big share of coin miners distribution is exactly after the malicious ads.

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

Potentially unwanted applications, like Defender-scan.xyz pop-up virus may cause a lot of different troubles on your personal computer. Distracting is not the single effect – pop-up notifications can present you the ads, where you are offered to download one more dubious program, or “a effective security tool”. Scareware is often distributed under the last slogun. Potentially undesirable applications, in turn, may have spyware functions. And it is pretty hard to distinguish the undesirable app from a good one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the PUPs and dubious antiviruses, popup-related advertisements are also chosen as a spreading method by different trojan viruses, for instance – coin miners. The consequences of activity of such malware is 100% unwanted, and can cost you hundreds or even thousands of dollars. And even if you are not interacting with these banners, they can be clicked by whoever who also makes use of your computer – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the things can become much more serious, and it will be much harder to solve it without data and money loss. It is recommended to eliminate the viruses with antivirus programs as soon as possible.

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

The tutorial of Defender-scan.xyz adware removal consists of 2 parts. First, we need to deal with the malware, and after that correct the consequences of its activity. The elimination task is really simple, because it can be executed even with using Microsoft Defender – anti-malware program that is present on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. Nevertheless, because of its significant resources consumption, as well as some errors that can be serious for some types of users, Defender is oftentimes disabled by the users, so its utilization is most likely impossible. Furthermore, different trojan viruses are able to turn off the embedded antivirus. It is better to make use of the separated program that will not have such exposures.

I would certainly recommend you to use Gridinsoft Anti-Malware² – a well-proven antivirus device that will definitely erase the viruses from your system and create an impenetrable shield with a Proactive protection function. However, let’s take care of Defender-scan.xyz adware initially.

Removing Defender-scan.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.

• 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.

• When the scan is over, you may choose the action for each detected virus. For all files of Defender-scan.xyz malware the default option is “Delete”. Press “Apply” to finish the malware removal.

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. 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. In the next screen, find the “Refresh Firefox” option :

After choosing this option, you will see the next message :

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 web browser will definitely be connected the correct DNS while connecting to the web page you want. Make a text file titled “hosts” on your pc’s desktop, after that open it and fill it with the following lines³:

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 issue that makes the things much harder to restore, particularly without the anti-malware program. Most of adware variations that are used to show you the Defender-scan.xyz pop-up advertisements are changing the deep browser settings, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you try to change your browser settings after your computer was infected by pop-up-related malware, your browser will crash quickly. In certain cases, you will see no crash, but huge lag spike after pressing the “settings” key. Browser will stop responding for ~ 30 seconds, and afterwards it will be back to the typical, till 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.

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.

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-scan.xyz Pop-ups?

Name: Defender-scan.xyz

Description: Defender-scan.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-scan.xyz push notifications?” or “why do Defender-scan.xyz pop-ups keep appearing on Chrome even after AdBlock installation?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with Defender-scan.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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1. More about pop-up ads on Wikipedia.
2. GridinSoft Anti-Malware overview and the reasons why I advise it for malware elimination.
3. Official Microsoft guide for hosts file reset.