Dev-defense Ads Removal Guide — How to Fix It?

Dev-defense pop-up alerts can show up unexpectedly, covering the subject of the website you explored or opening your browser when you don’t wish it to be opened.

Clicking the Dev-defense advertisement may result in the injection of various malware or unwanted programs. In this guide, you will see the tutorial of Dev-defense popups removal in multiple manners, as well as inspecting your personal computer for other malware presence.

It is better to prevent, than repair and repent!

Removing Dev-defense 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 Dev-defense pop-ups?

Dev-defense popups are an outcome of adware presence. Adware is a kind of malware that suggests you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click ads, which creates a major amount of profit for adware suppliers. These advertisements may include sometimes shocking composition, or have a web link to harmful content/website, considering that adware maintainers have no purpose to inspect the goodness of the material they are going to reveal – their solitary target is money.

Dev-defense push notification.

Pop-up promotions itself is a very good, low-priced and also really efficient advertising method¹. It makes it possible for the seller to attach the customers’ interest to their site, as well as the customers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they want to buy. When the consumer will receive a pop-up alert that the TV set he wishes to buy is available at the online store he/she saw previously with a 15% price cut, one will undoubtedly use this chance and purchase it. Taking into consideration the incredibly low cost for the popups and their targeting, such an advertising and marketing instrument is a much-loved thing among the advertising teams of large online retail stores.

However, such a profitable plan could not be missed by malware developers. Option to show the popup ads forcibly to the targets of malware attack is a great basis for evil-minded adjustments with the popup promotions. And Dev-defense.com promotions is just one of hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Here is a details for the Dev-defense site

How have I got the Dev-defense virus?

There are a huge amount of ways of getting infected by the adware that trigger the Dev-defense popups tornado. A lion’s part of this malware instances is after the freeware or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Free software can likewise be downloaded from the main site, and the adware is delivered as a legitimate bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A plenty of people frequently utilize the unreliable programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, a wide range of tools that are free of cost, or perhaps hacked programs. Every one of these kinds of applications are risky, since it is extremely easy to include a Dev-defense 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.

Dev-defense popup virus may likewise be concealed in the promotion somewhere on the odd website. Such web pages are generally loaded with bright and blinking ads, and their owners often approve any type of promos to be published on their page. For this reason, clicking such banners is a shot in the dark: only the advertisement provider knows what will happen when you press this ad. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you may also receive something a lot more unsafe, like ransomware or coin miner; the large share of coin miners circulation is exactly after the malicious advertisements.

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

Potentially unwanted programs, like Dev-defense popup virus may initiate a wide range of problems on your PC. Distracting is not the only problem – pop-up notifications may display you the banners, where you are offered to download one more dubious application, or “a perfect security tool”. Scareware is usually distributed with the last slogun. Potentially undesirable applications, in turn, can have spyware functionality. And it is pretty 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 promotions are also used as a spreading way by different trojan viruses, for instance – 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 interacting with these promotions, they may be clicked by whoever who also makes use of your PC – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the situation can become much more serious, and it will be much harder to deal with it without data and money loss. It is recommended to wipe out the viruses with antivirus programs as soon as possible.

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

The guide of Dev-defense adware clearing consists of 2 sections. Initially, we need to get rid of the malware, and after that correct the effects of its activity. The removal procedure is really simple, since it may be executed even with using Microsoft Defender – security tool that is available on all computers with Windows 8/10. Nevertheless, as a result of its significant resources consumption, along with some defects that can be critical for some kinds of users, Defender is often turned off by the users, so its usage is likely impossible. Furthermore, a wide range of trojan viruses are capable to disable the embedded antivirus. It is far better to use the separated program that will not have such vulnerabilities.

I’d advise you to utilize Gridinsoft Anti-Malware² – a well-proven security device that will surely wipe out the malware from your PC and create an invulnerable shield with a Proactive protection feature. But let’s handle Dev-defense adware initially.

Removing Dev-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.

• 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 Dev-defense 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 make sure that your web browser will be connected the correct DNS while connecting to the web page you want. Create a text file named “hosts” on your pc’s desktop, then open it and fill it with the following content³:

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.

Nevertheless, there is one trouble that makes the things a lot harder to fix, particularly without the anti-malware software. A lot of adware versions that are used to show you the Dev-defense pop-up promotions are adjusting the deep browser configurations, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you try to change your browser settings after your system was infected by pop-up-related malware, your browser will certainly collapse quickly. Sometimes, you will see no crash, however, significant lag spike after pushing the “settings” key. Browser will stop reacting for ~ 30 seconds, and afterwards it will be back to the typical, till you try to open settings one more time.

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 Dev-defense Pop-ups?

Name: Dev-defense

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