Defender-scanner Ads Removal Guide — How to Fix It?

Defender-scanner pop-up notices can show up out of the blue, covering the content of the site you went to or opening your browser when you do not want it to be opened.

Clicking the Defender-scanner advertisement can trigger the injection of various malware or unwanted programs. In this article, you will see the tutorial of Defender-scanner popups clearing in several methods, as well as inspecting your PC for extra viruses presence.

It is better to prevent, than repair and repent!

Removing Defender-scanner 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-scanner pop-ups?

Defender-scanner popups are an effect of adware presence. Adware is a type of malware that shows you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click promotions, which generates a significant amount of revenue for adware distributors. These ads might include sometimes shocking content, or have a link to malevolent content/website, since adware maintainers have no purpose to examine the goodness of the content they are going to reveal – their single target is cash.

Defender-scanner push notification.

Pop-up marketing itself is a very good, low-priced and also extremely productive marketing method¹. It permits the vendor to link the buyers’ attention to their site, as well as the customers to get 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 purchase is offered at the online shop he/she saw earlier with a 15% price cut, one will undoubtedly use this opportunity and purchase it. Considering the exceptionally low price for the popups and their targeting, such a marketing method is a favorite thing amongst the marketing teams of large internet retailers.

Nevertheless, such a successful scheme could not be missed by malware creators. Ability to show the popup ads forcibly to the victims of malware attack is an ideal basis for malicious adjustments with the popup promotions. And Defender-scanner.com promotions is just one of hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Here is a short details for the Defender-scanner site

How have I got the Defender-scanner virus?

There are a lot of methods of getting contaminated by the adware that lead to the Defender-scanner popups storm. A lion’s part of this malware cases is after the free software or cracked programs, that are distributed on the peering networks. Free software can also be downloaded from the main site, and the adware is offered as a legitimate bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A plenty of people oftentimes work with the uncertain programs from untrusted providers: abandonware, different tools that are free of cost, or perhaps hacked programs. All of these types of applications are dangerous, due to the fact that it is extremely simple to include a Defender-scanner malware under the guise of part of the license hacking script, or as a part of the self-made algoritm inside of the Windows optimization tool.

Defender-scanner popup malware can also be hidden in the promotion somewhere on the unusual website. Such websites are generally full of bright and blinking ads, and their proprietors typically permit any type of promotions to be posted on their web page. Thus, clicking on such banners is a shot in the dark: only the ad provider knows what will occur when you press this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or undesirable programs, you can likewise get something much more hazardous, like ransomware or coin miner; the substantial share of coin miners circulation is exactly after the malicious promotions.

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

Potentially unwanted programs, like Defender-scanner pop-up virus may initiate a wide range of different troubles on your PC. Distracting is not the single effect – pop-up notifications can show you the banners, where you are offered to get one more dubious program, or “a amazing security tool”. Scareware is often distributed under the last motto. Potentially unwanted applications, 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 PUPs and pseudo antiviruses, popup-related advertisements are also chosen as a distribution way by different 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 interacting with these promotions, they can be clicked by whoever 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 solve it without data and money loss. It is recommended to wipe out the viruses with anti-malware applications as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Defender-scanner pop-up advertisements?

The guide of Defender-scanner adware clearing consists of 2 parts. Initially, we need to remove the malware, and afterwards deal with the results of its action. The elimination task is really simple, since it may be done even with making use of Microsoft Defender – anti-malware tool that is available on all computers with Windows 8/10. However, due to its large resources usage, along with some failures that may be critical for some types of users, Defender is oftentimes disabled by the users, so its utilization is most likely impossible. Furthermore, a wide range of trojan viruses are capable to turn off the embedded antivirus. It is better to use the separated program that will not have such weakness.

I’d recommend you to utilize Gridinsoft Anti-Malware² – a well-proven security tool that will certainly remove the malware from your personal computer and create an invulnerable cover with a Proactive protection function. However, let’s manage Defender-scanner adware first.

Removing Defender-scanner 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-scanner 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 browsers are reset, you need to ensure that your browser will definitely connect the correct DNS while connecting to the site 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 problem that makes the things a lot more difficult to fix, especially without the anti-malware program. A lot of adware variants that are used to show you the Defender-scanner pop-up ads are changing the deep browser settings, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you try to change your browser settings after your PC was penetrated by pop-up-related malware, your browser will certainly collapse soon. In some cases, you will see no crash, however, significant lag spike after pushing the “settings” key. Browser will stop responding for ~ 30 secs, and then it will be back to the typical, till you attempt 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.

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-scanner Pop-ups?

Name: Defender-scanner

Description: Defender-scanner - 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-scanner.com push notifications?” or “why do Defender-scanner.com pop-ups keep appearing on Chrome even after AdBlock installation?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with Defender-scanner 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 review and also the reasons why I advise it for malware removal.
3. Official Microsoft guide for hosts file reset.