Dirty Messenger Ads Removal Guide — How to Fix It?

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Dirty Messenger pop-up notifications may show up unexpectedly, covering the post of the page you explored or opening your web browser when you don’t need it to be opened.

Clicking the Dirty Messenger ad can trigger the injection of various malware or unwanted programs. In this article, you will see the guideline of Dirty Messenger popups clearing in various methods, as well as inspecting your personal computer for extra malware existence.

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What are Dirty Messenger pop-ups?

Dirty Messenger popups are an effect of adware presence. Adware is a sort of malware that suggests you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click ads, which produces a massive amount of revenue for adware representatives. These advertisements may contain explicit material, or have a web link to malicious content/website, considering that adware maintainers have no purpose to examine the goodness of the content they are going to show – their solitary target is money.

Dirty Messenger push notification

Dirty Messenger push notification.

Pop-up marketing itself is a good, low-cost and also extremely effective marketing method1. It allows the seller to link the customers’ interest to their site, and the customers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they intend to buy. When the customer will receive a pop-up alert that the TV set he likes to purchase is offered at the online store he/she checked out previously with a 15% discount, one will surely use this possibility and buy it. Considering the exceptionally low price for the popups and their targeting, such a marketing instrument is a favourite thing amidst the advertising teams of huge online retailers.

Nonetheless, such a profitable plan could not be missed by virus developers. Potential to show the popup advertisements by force to the victims of malware attack is a perfect basis for evil-minded tricks with the popup promotions. And Dirty-messenger.com advertisements is one of hundreds that are “employed” in this system.

Here is a short details for the Dirty Messenger
Site Dirty-messenger.com
Hosting AS13335 Cloudflare, Inc.
United States, San Francisco
Infection Type Adware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address 104.21.2.239
Symptoms Annoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behavior Localbestdating1, Gsiswensaidh, Gooddaywn1
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Dirty Messenger virus?

There are a number of ways of getting contaminated by the adware that lead to the Dirty Messenger popups storm. A lion’s part of this virus incidents is after the free software or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Free software may additionally be downloaded from the official web page, and the adware is presented as a legit bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A lot of users often utilize the uncertain programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, a wide range of apps that are free, or even hacked programs. Every one of these kinds of software are unsafe, since it is quite simple to integrate a Dirty Messenger 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.

Dirty Messenger popup malware may additionally be concealed in the advertisement somewhere on the unusual web page. Such sites are usually packed with colorful and blinking advertisements, and their owners typically permit any type of promos to be posted on their web page. For this reason, clicking such banners is a shot in the dark: only the ad contractor knows what will happen when you press this ad. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you can also receive something far more damaging, like ransomware or coin miner; the substantial 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 applications, like Dirty Messenger popup virus may provoke a variety of troubles on your PC. Distracting is not the single effect – pop-ups may present you the banners, where you are offered to download one more dubious program, or “a perfect security tool”. Scareware is usually distributed with the use of the last slogun. Potentially undesirable programs, in turn, can have spyware functionality. And it is very hard to distinguish the unwanted app from a legit one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the potentially unwanted programs and dubious antiviruses, popup-related promotions are also exploited as a spreading method by different trojan viruses, for instance – coin miners. The consequences of actions of such malware is 100% unpleasant, and can cost you hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not tapping these advertisements, they may be clicked by whoever who also uses 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 information loss. It is recommended to eliminate the viruses with anti-malware applications as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Dirty Messenger pop-up advertisements?

The guide of Dirty Messenger adware removal contains 2 sections. Initially, we need to exterminate the malware, and then correct the results of its action. The elimination task is very easy, due to the fact that it can be executed even with the use of Microsoft Defender – anti-malware program that is present on all computers with Windows 8/10. However, as a result of its substantial resources usage, as well as some errors that may be serious for some categories of individuals, Defender is frequently disabled by the users, so its utilization is probably impossible. Furthermore, various trojan viruses can turn off the embedded antivirus. It is better to make use of the separated program that will not have such vulnerabilities.

I would certainly recommend you to use Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven security tool that will definitely wipe out the viruses from your personal computer and create an invulnerable cover with a Proactive protection feature. However, let’s deal with Dirty Messenger adware first.

Removing Dirty Messenger 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 Dirty Messenger 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 web browser will connect the accurate 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 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.

Nevertheless, there is one problem that makes things a lot harder to repair, especially without the anti-malware software. A lot of adware variations that are used to show you the Dirty Messenger pop-up advertisements are adjusting the deep browser setups, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you attempt to fix your browser settings after your PC was penetrated by pop-up-related malware, your browser will certainly crash quickly. In certain cases, you will see no crash, however, huge lag spike after pressing the “settings” key. Browser will stop reacting for ~ 30 seconds, and then it will be back to the normal, 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 Dirty Messenger Pop-ups?

Name: Dirty Messenger

Description: Dirty Messenger - 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 Dirty-messenger.com push notifications?” or “why do Dirty-messenger.com pop-ups keep appearing on Chrome even after AdBlock installation?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with Dirty Messenger 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 also 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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