Remove Discaffix Virus — How to Fix Guide

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Discaffix pop-up alerts can show up unexpectedly, covering the post of the site you went to or opening your web browser when you don’t need it to be opened.

Clicking the Discaffix advertisement can lead to the injection of other malware or unwanted programs. In this article, you will see the manual of Discaffix popups removal in various manners, as well as inspecting your system for additional malware existence.

GridinSoft Anti-Malware Review
It is better to prevent, than repair and repent!
Removing Discaffix 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.
Gridinsoft Anti-Malware 6-day trial available.
EULA | Privacy Policy | 10% Off Coupon
Subscribe to our Telegram channel to be the first to know about news and our exclusive materials on information security.

What are Discaffix pop-ups?

Discaffix popups are a result of adware presence. Adware is a type of malware that shows you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click advertisements, which creates a massive volume of income for adware representatives. These advertisements may include sometimes shocking material, or have a link to malevolent content/website, due to the fact that adware maintainers have no reason to inspect the goodness of the content they are going to reveal – their single target is cash.

Discaffix push notification

Discaffix push notification.

Pop-up marketing itself is a very good, low-cost and also extremely successful advertising tool1. It allows the seller to link the customers’ attention to their site, and the buyers to receive the dynamic updates on the goods they intend to purchase. When the person will receive a pop-up alert that the TV set he wishes to buy is available at the online shop he/she visited previously with a 15% discount, one will undoubtedly use this opportunity and get it. Considering the extremely low cost for the popups and their targeting, such an advertising and marketing tool is a much-loved thing among the marketing teams of huge online sellers.

Nonetheless, such a profitable strategy could not be missed by malware creators. Potential to demonstrate the popup ads forcibly to the targets of malware invasion is an excellent basis for evil-minded tricks with the popup advertisements. And Discaffix.com ads is one of hundreds that are “employed” in this system.

Here is a short details for the Discaffix
SiteDiscaffix.com
HostingAS13335 Cloudflare, Inc.
United States, San Francisco
Infection TypeAdware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address188.114.97.7
SymptomsAnnoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behaviorLoadrefinedsupertheproduct, Avira, Darkbrowse
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Discaffix virus?

There are a number of ways of becoming infected by the adware that result in the Discaffix popups storm. A lion’s part of this computer virus instances is after the free software or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Free software may 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 individuals often make use of the unreliable programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, a wide range of apps that are free of cost, or even hacked programs. All of these sorts of software are unsafe, because it is very simple to build in a Discaffix malware under the guise of part of the license hacking script, or as a part of the self-made algoritm within the Windows optimization tool.

Discaffix popup malware can also be concealed in the ad somewhere on the strange website. Such web pages are generally packed with bright and blinking advertisements, and their proprietors usually permit any kind of promotions to be posted on their page. Therefore, clicking on such banners is a risky thing: only the ad provider knows what will occur when you click this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or undesirable programs, you can additionally get something much more dangerous, like ransomware or coin miner; the big share of coin miners distribution is exactly after the malicious promotions.

People dislike popups

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

Potentially undesirable programs, like Discaffix pop-up virus may initiate a wide range of troubles on your PC. Distracting is not the only problem – pop-up notifications may present you the promotions, where you are offered to get another strange program, or “a perfect security tool”. Scareware is usually distributed with the use of the last slogun. Potentially unwanted programs, in turn, can have spyware functionality. And it is very hard to distinguish the undesirable app from a good one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the PUPs and fake antiviruses, popup-related ads are also chosen as a spreading method by various trojan viruses, for instance – coin miners. The consequences of actions of such viruses is 100% unwanted, and can cost you several 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 computer – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the situation may become much more serious, and it will be much harder to deal with it without data loss. It is recommended to wipe out the viruses with anti-malware applications as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Discaffix pop-up advertisements?

The guide of Discaffix adware elimination consists of 2 sections. First, we need to deal with the malware, and after that take care of the results of its action. The elimination procedure is very easy, because it can be executed even with using Microsoft Defender – anti-malware software that is available on all computers with Windows 8/10. However, due to its significant resources consumption, as well as some errors that may be crucial for some kinds of users, Defender is oftentimes disabled by the users, so its use is most likely impossible. What’s more, various trojan viruses are capable to switch off the embedded antivirus. It is much better to use the separated program that will not have such weakness.

I would certainly recommend you to utilize Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven anti-malware device that will surely erase the viruses from your PC and make an invulnerable cover with a Proactive protection function. But let’s take care of Discaffix adware initially.

Removing Discaffix 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 Discaffix 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 web browsers are reset, you need to make sure that your browser will be connected the right DNS while connecting to the website you want. Create a text file named “hosts” on your desktop, then open it and fill it with the following text3:

# 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 issue that makes things much harder to restore, specifically without the anti-malware software. Most of adware variants that are used to show you the Discaffix pop-up promotions are altering the deep browser settings, 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 soon. Sometimes, you will see no crash, but significant lag spike after pressing the “settings” key. Browser will stop reacting for ~ 30 secs, and then it will be back to the typical, till you attempt 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.

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 Discaffix Pop-ups?

Name: Discaffix

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

Sending
User Review
4.43 (7 votes)
Comments Rating 0 (0 reviews)

References

  1. More about pop-up ads on Wikipedia.
  2. GridinSoft Anti-Malware overview and the reasons why I suggest 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.

Leave a Reply

Sending