Protect-web.xyz Ads Removal Guide — How to Fix It?

Protect-web.xyz pop-up alerts may appear unexpectedly, covering the subject of the site you visited or opening your web browser when you do not want it to be opened.

Clicking the Protect-web.xyz advertisement can trigger the injection of other malware or unwanted programs. In this article, you will see the manual of Protect-web.xyz popups clearing in various manners, as well as checking your computer for additional viruses presence.

It is better to prevent, than repair and repent!

Removing Protect-web.xyz 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.

DOWNLOAD NOW

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 Protect-web.xyz pop-ups?

Protect-web.xyz popups are a result of adware action. Adware is a kind of malware that suggests you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click promotions, which generates a large volume of income for adware suppliers. These advertisements might consist of explicit composition, or have a link to malicious content/website, due to the fact that adware maintainers have no reason to inspect the goodness of the material they are going to show – their solitary target is cash.

Protect-web.xyz push notification.

Pop-up promotions itself is an excellent, cheap and also very effective marketing solution¹. It permits the seller to link the customers’ interest to their site, as well as the buyers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they intend to purchase. When the person will get a pop-up alert that the TV set he desires to buy is offered at the online shop he/she visited previously with a 15% discount, one will undoubtedly use this opportunity and purchase it. Considering the very low price for the popups and their targeting, such an advertising instrument is a much-loved thing amongst the marketing teams of huge internet retailers.

However, such a rewarding scheme could not be missed by malware creators. Ability to show the popup advertisements forcibly to the victims of malware invasion is a perfect basis for malicious manipulations with the popup ads. And Protect-web.xyz advertisements is just one of hundreds that are “employed” in this system.

Here is a short summary for the Protect-web.xyz site

How have I got the Protect-web.xyz virus?

There are a number of ways of becoming contaminated by the adware that cause the Protect-web.xyz popups tornado. A lion’s part of this virus incidents is after the free software or cracked programs, that are distributed on the peering networks. Freeware can additionally be downloaded from the official website, and the adware is presented as a legal bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A number of people oftentimes use the dubious programs from untrusted providers: abandonware, different apps that are free, and even hacked programs. Every one of these sorts of software are dangerous, because it is quite easy to integrate a Protect-web.xyz malware under the cover of part of the license hacking script, or as a component of the self-made algoritm within the Windows optimization tool.

Protect-web.xyz popup malware may likewise be hidden in the promotion somewhere on the odd site. Such sites are in most cases packed with colorful and blinking advertisements, and their owners typically permit any kind of promos to be posted on their page. Therefore, clicking on such banners is a shot in the dark: only the advertisement contractor knows what will occur when you press this ad. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you may also get something far more threatening, like ransomware or coin miner; the substantial share of coin miners distribution is exactly after the malicious promotions.

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

Potentially undesirable applications, like Protect-web.xyz pop-up virus can provoke a variety of different troubles on your computer. Distracting is not the only problem – pop-ups may show you the advertisements, where you are offered to get one more strange application, or “a effective anti-malware tool”. Scareware is often distributed under the last slogun. Potentially unwanted programs, in turn, may have spyware functions. And it is quite hard to distinguish the unwanted app from a normal one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the PUPs and pseudo antiviruses, popup-related ads are also exploited as a distribution way by different trojan viruses, for instance – coin miners. The consequences of activity of such viruses is 100% unpleasant, and can cost you hundreds or even thousands of dollars. And even if you are not tapping these ads, they may be clicked by whoever who also makes use of your computer – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the things may become much more serious, and it will be much harder to solve it without information loss. It is recommended to eliminate the viruses with antivirus applications as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Protect-web.xyz pop-up advertisements?

The guide of Protect-web.xyz adware clearing contains 2 sections. First, we need to remove the malware, and after that fix the effects of its activity. The removal procedure is quite easy, since it can be executed even with the use of Microsoft Defender – security program that is present on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. Nevertheless, due to its huge resources utilization, along with some defects that may be critical for some types of users, Defender is oftentimes turned off by the users, so its utilization is probably impossible. In addition, various trojan viruses can turn off the embedded antivirus. It is better to make use of the separated program that will not have such exposures.

I’d advise you to utilize Gridinsoft Anti-Malware² – a well-proven anti-malware tool that will definitely erase the malware from your computer and make an invulnerable cover with a Proactive protection feature. But let’s take care of Protect-web.xyz adware first.

Removing Protect-web.xyz 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-web.xyz 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 ensure that your browser will be connected the appropriate DNS while connecting to the site you want. Create a text file titled “hosts” on your pc’s desktop, after that open it and fill it with the following lines³:

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 the things a lot more difficult to restore, specifically without the anti-malware software. A lot of adware variations that are used to show you the Protect-web.xyz pop-up promotions are adjusting the deep browser settings, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you attempt to change your browser settings after your PC was infected by pop-up-related malware, your browser will collapse soon. Sometimes, you will see no crash, but large lag spike after pushing the “settings” key. Browser will stop reacting for ~ 30 secs, and afterwards it will be back to the typical, till 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.

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-web.xyz Pop-ups?

Name: Protect-web.xyz

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

3.6 (5 votes)

Comments Rating 0 (0 reviews)

1. More about pop-up ads on Wikipedia.
2. GridinSoft Anti-Malware overview and also the reasons why I advise it for malware removal.
3. Official Microsoft guide for hosts file reset.