Mastason Pop-up Virus — How to Remove Unwanted Ads?

Mastason.com pop-ups that you can see while surfing the Internet are the outcome of a malicious software activity that resides inside your browser. Such pop-ups emerge in abundant quantities, diverting and irritating you.

The vast majority of the pop-ups from Mastason.com site are irrelevant, as it shows any marketing content it gets a contract for. Given that many services promoted in this way are not benevolent, it is apparent to anticipate them to contain dangerous components. Specifically, they can expose you to diverse forms of web deceptions.

What are Mastason pop-up notifications?

By some of the attributes, Mastason.com pop-ups are similar to typical pop-ups you may encounter on legit websites. However, all the distinction – and harmfulness – stems from this exact website. Pages like Mastason are often formed with sole intention – to propose unsuspecting users to allow pop-ups and then start spamming them.

Short summary of the Mastason.com pop-up ads:

Name Mastason.com
Hosting AS13335 Cloudflare, Inc.
United States, San Francisco
IP Address 104.18.23.95
Malware type Adware1
Effect Unwanted pop-up advertisements
Hazard level Medium
Malware source Apps from third-party websites, ads on dubious websites
Similar behavior Popathself, Uhricebel, News
Removal method
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

Ads by the Mastason.com site are not trustworthy either. At best, those will be completely irrelevant ads, that will still be irritating taking into account the frequency. Nevertheless, more typical cases encompass advertisements of obscure deals with 90% off, adult web pages ads or scam attempts. Below are some of the standard patterns for pop-up notifications spam:

  • Discover 5, 10, 20, or even 50 women near you who are eager to chat.
  • Sign in on this new crypto exchange website and receive a substantial crypto bonus.
  • Your system is infected with 15 viruses. Contact our tech support or perform an immediate scan.
  • You’ve received a new message on Facebook, Twitter, or WhatsApp. Beware of phishing links.
  • Visit this new, totally legitimate shopping site and claim your discount coupon.
  • up your computer with an incredibly effective system cleaner.

Due to the illicit promotional model of Mastason.com, no lawful corporations will really utilize their promotional offerings. Meanwhile, the complete spectrum of topics I’ve outlined above is managed by the same scammy actors as those who stand behind Mastason. At times, upon clicking to the pop-up notification, you might be redirected to another page that proposes activating pop-up advertisements. The activity of several sources of pop-ups can transform your web browser into an outlet of a pop-up surge.

Mastason push notification

Mastason push notification.

Where did Mastason pop-ups come from?

The primary and most widespread technique to access the pop-up spamming site is to browse content on warez sites, pages containing pirated content, and similar platforms. The people responsible for such uncertain venues aim to counterbalance expenses via redirects, often as a advertising maneuver. This type of redirection is commonly known as an “anti-bot verification”.

An additional plausible source of pop-up advertisements is adware, currently active inside your system. It changes browser settings in a way so it begins displaying Mastason pop-ups without your knowledge. However, this scenario is relatively rare, as such malware employs its own, more productive method to showcasing advertisements.

Are Mastason pop-up ads dangerous?

Yes, they are. Initially, they may look non-threatening – just a blinking window that appears a couple times in an hour. However, the things this window promotes differ sharply from what you generally see in pop-up notifications. Mastason.com site is ruled by fraudsters, who intendedly show hundreds and thousands of malicious ads in pop-ups. They also don’t follow any manners of advertising and can make sporadic push notifications into a hurricane of banners. For weak computers, that may be enough to cause performance issues. But problems are not over at this point.

Why people dislike popups

As any other thing that touches illegal ads, Mastason push notifications don’t have legit deals to offer. Even though crooks make the banners looking similar to ones from Walmart or Amazon, the website these ads will throw you to are completely different. And these pages may offer you to turn on other pop-ups, install a “useful” program, or pay for a thing at a big discount and never receive it. Let’s leave aside the cases when push notifications promote phishing pages or straightforward malware. There’s no way these pages will bring you any good, thus interacting with them is a very bad idea. For the same reason, Mastason pop-up advertisements are not recommended to click on either, and the best solution is to disable them as soon as possible.

How to remove Mastason pop-ups?

Reset your browsers manually

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 ensure that your browser will connect the right DNS while connecting to the website you need. Create a text file titled “hosts” on your pc’s desktop, then open it and fill it with the following lines2:


# 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.

Scan your system for possible viruses

Once the scan is complete, you will see the detections or a notification about a clean system. Proceed with pressing the Clean Up button (or OK when nothing is detected).

References

  1. Official Microsoft guide for hosts file reset.

About the author

Wilbur Woodham

Technical writer covering malware detections, unwanted programs, and browser-based threats. Wilbur turns research notes into step-by-step guides that Windows users can follow safely.

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