How to remove Protectad.online pop-ups? — Fix Guide

Undesirable Protectad.online pop-up notifications can show up unexpectedly, covering the material of the page you explored or opening your web browser when you don’t want it to be opened. Clicking the Protectad.online pop-up advertisement may lead to the injection of different malware or unwanted programs. In this article, you will see the tutorial of Protectad.online popups clearing in several ways, as well as checking your PC for other viruses presence.

It is better to prevent, than repair and repent!

Removing Protectad.online 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.

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What are Protectad.online pop-ups?

Protectad.online popups are a consequence of adware presence. Adware is a sort of malware that presents you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click ads, which generates a major volume of income for adware representatives. These advertisements may consist of explicit composition, or have a link to harmful 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 money.

Protectad.online push notification.

Pop-up marketing itself is a very good, low-cost and extremely effective advertising instrument¹ It allows the seller to attach the customers’ interest to their website, as well as the buyers to receive the dynamic updates on the goods they want to buy. When the person will get a pop-up alert that the TV set he likes to buy is offered at the online store he/she visited previously with a 15% discount, one will surely use this possibility and buy it. Taking into consideration the incredibly low cost for the popups and their targeting, such a promotion and marketing method is a favourite thing among the advertising departments of huge online sellers.

However, such a rewarding plan could not be missed by virus creators. Potential to show the popup advertisements by force to the targets of malware invasion is an excellent basis for malevolent tricks with the popup promotions. And Protectad.online promotions is one of hundreds that are “employed” in this system.

Here is a details for the Protectad.online

How have I got the Protectad.online virus?

There are a number of ways of getting infected by the adware that result in the Protectad.online popups storm. A lion’s part of this malware cases is after the freeware or cracked programs, that are distributed on the peering networks. Freeware can likewise be downloaded from the main site, and the adware is supplied as a legal bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A huge amount of users regularly work with the dubious programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, different utilities that are free, and even hacked programs. All of these sorts of applications are risky, due to the fact that it is quite simple to build in a Protectad.online malware under the guise of part of the license hacking script, or as a component of the self-made algoritm within the Windows optimization tool.

Protectad.online popup virus can likewise be concealed in the ad somewhere on the unusual website. Such websites are typically loaded with intense and blinking ads, and their proprietors usually permit any promotions to be posted on their page. For this reason, clicking such banners is a risky thing: only the ad contractor realizes what will happen when you click this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you can additionally receive something much more unsafe, like ransomware or coin miner; the large share of coin miners distribution is exactly after the malicious ads.

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

How can I get rid of Protectad.online pop-up advertisements?

The tutorial of Protectad.online adware removal consists of 2 sections. Initially, we need to deal with the malware, and then take care of the consequences of its activity. The elimination procedure is quite easy, due to the fact that it can be done even with using Microsoft Defender – anti-virus software that is available on all computers with Windows 8/10. Nevertheless, as a result of its large resources utilization, as well as some problems that can be crucial for some categories of individuals, Defender is oftentimes disabled by the users, so its use is likely impossible. What’s more, different trojan viruses are capable to disable the embedded antivirus. It is far better to make use of the separated program that will not have such weakness.

I would certainly recommend you to utilize Gridinsoft Anti-Malware² – a well-proven anti-malware tool that will undoubtedly remove the viruses from your PC and also create an impenetrable cover with a Proactive protection feature. However, let’s manage Protectad.online adware initially.

Removing Protectad.online 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 Protectad.online 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 web browser will definitely be connected the appropriate DNS while connecting to the web page you need. Make a text file titled “hosts” on your pc’s desktop, then open it and fill it with the following text³:

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 trouble that makes the things a lot harder to repair, especially without the anti-malware software. The majority of adware variants that are utilized to show you the Protectad.online pop-up promotions are adjusting the deep browser configurations, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you try to change your browser settings after your computer was infected by pop-up-related malware, your browser will collapse soon. Sometimes, you will see no crash, but significant lag spike after pushing the “settings” key. Browser will stop responding for ~ 30 secs, and then it will be back to the normal, 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 Protectad.online Pop-ups?

Name: Protectad.online

Description: Protectad.online - 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 Protectad.online push notifications?” or “why do Protectad.online pop-ups keep appearing on Chrome even after AdBlock installation?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with Protectad.online 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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1. More about pop-up ads on Wikipedia.
2. GridinSoft Anti-Malware review and also the reasons why I recommend it for malware removal.
3. Official Microsoft guide for hosts file reset.