Protect-me.vip pop-up notifications may appear unexpectedly, covering the post of the website you visited or opening your web browser when you don’t need it to be opened.
Clicking the Protect-me.vip advertisement may result in the injection of various malware or unwanted programs. In this post, you will see the guide of Protect-me.vip popups clearing in various methods, and also inspecting your computer for other viruses existence.
What are Protect-me.vip pop-ups?
Protect-me.vip popups are an effect of adware action. Adware is a kind of malware that shows you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click promotions, which creates a massive amount of profit for adware suppliers. These ads might have explicit information, or have a link to malicious content/website, due to the fact that adware maintainers have no purpose to check the goodness of the material they are going to show – their solitary target is cash.
Protect-me.vip push notification.
Pop-up promotions itself is an excellent, low-cost and really productive advertising tool1. It enables the seller to link the buyers’ interest to their site, as well as the customers to receive the dynamic updates on the goods they wish to purchase. When the consumer will receive a pop-up alert that the TV set he likes to buy is provided at the online shop he/she checked out earlier with a 15% price cut, one will undoubtedly use this opportunity and get it. Considering the very low cost for the popups and their targeting, such a promotion and marketing tool is a favourite thing amongst the marketing departments of huge online retail stores.
However, such a successful system could not be missed by malware developers. Ability to show the popup ads by force to the victims of malware invasion is an ideal basis for evil-minded adjustments with the popup advertisements. And Protect-me.vip promotions is one of hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.
Here is a summary for the Protect-me.vip site
| Site | Protect-me.vip |
| Hosting | AS13335 Cloudflare, Inc. United States, San Francisco |
| Infection Type | Adware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads |
| IP Address | 188.114.97.3 |
| Symptoms | Annoying pop-up ads in the right corner. |
| Similar behavior | Starthotdating, Srchtravel, Search |
| Fix Tool | To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC |
How have I got the Protect-me.vip virus?
There are a lot of ways of getting infected by the adware that result in the Protect-me.vip popups storm. A lion’s part of this virus incidents is after the freeware or cracked programs, that are distributed on the peering networks. Free software can also be downloaded from the official web page, and the adware is provided as a legal bundled program.
There is no need to blame yourself. A plenty of people frequently make use of the dubious programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, various apps that are free, or perhaps hacked programs. All of these types of applications are unsafe, since it is extremely easy to integrate a Protect-me.vip malware under the cover of part of the license hacking script, or as a part of the self-made algoritm within the Windows optimization tool.
Protect-me.vip popup virus can likewise be hidden in the advertisement somewhere on the unusual site. Such web pages are in most cases filled with intense and blinking ads, and their owners usually accept any promotions to be posted on their page. Thus, clicking on such banners is a shot in the dark: only the ad provider knows what will occur when you click this ad. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or undesirable programs, you can also get something far more dangerous, like ransomware or coin miner; the substantial 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 Protect-me.vip pop-up virus may initiate a variety of different troubles on your computer. Distracting is not the only problem – pop-up notifications can display you the banners, where you are offered to get another unknown program, or “a amazing security tool”. Scareware is usually distributed with the use of the last slogun. Potentially undesirable programs, in turn, may have spyware functions. And it is quite hard to distinguish the unwanted 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 example – coin miners. The consequences of actions of such viruses is 100% unwanted, and can cost you hundreds or even thousands of dollars. And even if you are not tapping these promotions, they may be clicked by someone 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 deal with it without data and money loss. It is recommended to eliminate the viruses with anti-malware programs as soon as possible.
How can I get rid of Protect-me.vip pop-up advertisements?
The manual of Protect-me.vip adware removal includes 2 sections. First, we need to eliminate the malware, and afterwards correct the results of its action. The removal process is pretty easy, because it can be done even with using Microsoft Defender – security software that is available on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. Nevertheless, due to its substantial resources consumption, along with some defects that can be pivotal for some types of users, Defender is oftentimes turned off by the users, so its use is probably impossible. Furthermore, a wide range of trojan viruses have the ability to turn off the embedded antivirus. It is much better to use the separated program that will not have such exposures.
I would certainly advise you to utilize Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven antivirus tool that will definitely erase the viruses from your personal computer and also create an invulnerable cover with a Proactive protection function. But let’s handle Protect-me.vip adware first.
Removing Protect-me.vip 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 Protect-me.vip 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 :
- Open “Settings and more” tab in upper right corner, then find here “Settings” button. In the appeared menu, choose “Reset settings” option :
- 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 :
- Open Menu tab (three strips in upper right corner) and click the “Help” button. In the appeared menu choose “troubleshooting information” :
- In the next screen, find the “Refresh Firefox” option :
After choosing this option, you will see the next message :
If you use Google Chrome
- Open Settings tab, find the “Advanced” button. In the extended tab choose the “Reset and clean up” button :
- In the appeared list, click on the “Restore settings to their original defaults” :
- 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
- 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 :
- 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 correct DNS while connecting to the website you want. Create a text file titled “hosts” on your computer’s desktop, then open it and fill it with the following content3:
#
# 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.
Nonetheless, there is one trouble that makes the things a lot more difficult to restore, specifically without the anti-malware software. A lot of adware variations that are utilized to show you the Protect-me.vip pop-up ads are adjusting the deep browser configurations, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you attempt to fix your browser settings after your machine was penetrated by pop-up-related malware, your browser will crash soon. In certain cases, you will see no crash, however, huge lag spike after pushing the “settings” key. Browser will stop reacting for ~ 30 secs, and afterwards it will be back to the typical, up until you attempt to open settings once more.
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 Protect-me.vip Pop-ups?
Name: Protect-me.vip
Description: Protect-me.vip - 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 Protect-me.vip push notifications?” or “why do Protect-me.vip pop-ups keep appearing on Chrome even after AdBlock installation?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with Protect-me.vip 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
User Review
( votes)References
- More about pop-up ads on Wikipedia.
- GridinSoft Anti-Malware overview and also the reasons why I suggest it for malware removal.
- Official Microsoft guide for hosts file reset.
