Protectedscans Pop-up Ads Removal — How to Fix Your Browser?

Protectedscans.com pop-ups that you can see while browsing the Web are the result of a malicious software infection that resides in your web browser. Such pop-ups emerge in ample quantities, diverting and irritating you.

The most of the pop-ups from Protectedscans.com site are not relevant, as it displays any advertising content it receives a contract for. Given that many pages promoted in this way are not benevolent, it is apparent to anticipate them to feature dangerous components. Specifically, they can throw you into various types of web deceptions.

It is better to prevent, than repair and repent!

Removing Protectedscans 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 Protectedscans pop-ups?

By certain characteristics, Protectedscans.com pop-ups are similar to normal pop-ups you may come across on legit websites. However, all the distinction – and malignancy – originates from this exact website. Pages like Protectedscans are commonly created with sole objective – to offer unsuspecting people to activate pop-ups and then begin spamming them.

Short summary of the Protectedscans.com pop-ups:

Ads by the Protectedscans.com site are not trustworthy either. At best, those will be completely irrelevant banners, that will still be annoying taking into account their frequency. However, more common scenarios encompass advertisements of enigmatic deals with 90% off, adult web pages ads or deception attempts. Here are some of the classic patterns for pop-up 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 illegal marketing strategy of Protectedscans.com, no lawful corporations will really utilize their promotion services. Instead, the entire range of subjects I’ve delineated above is managed by the same deceitful persons as those who stand behind Protectedscans. At times, upon interaction with the pop-up notification, you might be redirected to another page that suggests activating pop-up advertisements. The activity of multiple origins of pop-ups can transform your web browser into an avenue of a pop-up surge.

Protectedscans push notification.

Where did Protectedscans pop-ups come from?

The primary and most common approach to access the pop-up spamming site is to navigate through content on warez sites, pages containing pirated content, and the like. The persons responsible for such questionable venues aim to counterbalance expenses via redirects, often as a promotional strategy. This type of redirection is commonly known as an “anti-bot verification”.

An additional plausible origin of pop-up advertisements is adware, currently active inside your system. It modifies browser settings in a way so it starts displaying Protectedscans pop-ups without your knowledge. However, this circumstance is relatively uncommon, as such malware employs its own, more efficient method to showcasing advertisements.

Are Protectedscans push notifications dangerous?

Yes, they are. At the surface, they may look harmless – just a colourful pop-up that appears from time to time. However, the things this window promotes differ sharply from what you used to see in pop-up advertisements. Protectedscans.com web page is controlled by fraudsters, who intentionally throw hundreds and thousands of irrelevant ads in pop-ups. They also don’t follow any manners of advertising and can make sporadic push notifications into a hurricane of promotions. For weak systems, that may be enough to make the system slower. But troubles are not over at this point.

As any other thing related to illegal advertising, Protectedscans pop-up advertisements don’t have legit deals to offer. Even when crooks make the banners looking similar to ones from Amazon, Walmart or Ebay, the website these banners will throw you to are completely different. And these pages can 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 pop-up 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, Protectedscans pop-up notifications are not recommended to click on either, and the best solution is to disable them as soon as possible.

How to remove Protectedscans pop-ups?

Fortunately, Protectedscans pop-up ads removal is not very complicated. They parasite in the web browser and cannot hide themselves among system files. Nonetheless, as I pointed out before, some pop-up ads can deliver malicious software to your system. It is hard to describe all of the cases, and manual malware removal is a poor idea. Therefore, after removing the source of the push notifications it is recommended to use anti-malware software. That is especially recommended in the case when you have never allowed pop-up ads, but they still appeared. This situation can point at adware activity. GridinSoft Anti-Malware will be the best both system recovery and malware scanning purposes, thanks to its system recovery functionality and multi-layer detection system.

Remove Protectedscans.com with Gridinsoft Anti-Malware

We have also been using this software on our systems ever since, and it has always been successful in detecting viruses. It has blocked the most common malicious pop-ups as shown from our tests with the software, and we assure you that it can remove Protectedscans.com as well as other malware hiding on your computer.

To use Gridinsoft for remove malicious threats, follow the steps below:

1. Begin by downloading Gridinsoft Anti-Malware, accessible via the blue button below or directly from the official website gridinsoft.com.

2.Once the Gridinsoft setup file (setup-gridinsoft-fix.exe) is downloaded, execute it by clicking on the file.

3.Follow the installation setup wizard's instructions diligently.

4. Access the "Scan Tab" on the application's start screen and launch a comprehensive "Full Scan" to examine your entire computer. This inclusive scan encompasses the memory, startup items, the registry, services, drivers, and all files, ensuring that it detects malware hidden in all possible locations.

Be patient, as the scan duration depends on the number of files and your computer's hardware capabilities. Use this time to relax or attend to other tasks.

5. Upon completion, Anti-Malware will present a detailed report containing all the detected malicious items and threats on your PC.

6. Select all the identified items from the report and confidently click the "Clean Now" button. This action will safely remove the malicious files from your computer, transferring them to the secure quarantine zone of the anti-malware program to prevent any further harmful actions.

8. If prompted, restart your computer to finalize the full system scan procedure. This step is crucial to ensure thorough removal of any remaining threats. After the restart, Gridinsoft Anti-Malware will open and display a message confirming the completion of the scan.

Remember Gridinsoft offers a 6-day free trial. This means you can take advantage of the trial period at no cost to experience the full benefits of the software and prevent any future malware infections on your system. Embrace this opportunity to fortify your computer's security without any financial commitment.

Trojan Killer for “Protectedscans.com” removal on locked PC

In situations where it becomes impossible to download antivirus applications directly onto the infected computer due to malware blocking access to websites, an alternative solution is to utilize the Trojan Killer application.

There is a really little number of security tools that are able to be set up on the USB drives, and antiviruses that can do so in most cases require to obtain quite an expensive license. For this instance, I can recommend you to use another solution of GridinSoft - Trojan Killer Portable. It has a 14-days cost-free trial mode that offers the entire features of the paid version. This term will definitely be 100% enough to wipe malware out.

Trojan Killer is a valuable tool in your cybersecurity arsenal, helping you to effectively remove malware from infected computers. Now, we will walk you through the process of using Trojan Killer from a USB flash drive to scan and remove malware on an infected PC. Remember, always obtain permission to scan and remove malware from a computer that you do not own.

Step 1: Download & Install Trojan Killer on a Clean Computer:

1. Go to the official GridinSoft website (gridinsoft.com) and download Trojan Killer to a computer that is not infected.

2. Insert a USB flash drive into this computer.

3. Install Trojan Killer to the "removable drive" following the on-screen instructions.

4. Once the installation is complete, launch Trojan Killer.

Step 2: Update Signature Databases:

5. After launching Trojan Killer, ensure that your computer is connected to the Internet.

6. Click "Update" icon to download the latest signature databases, which will ensure the tool can detect the most recent threats.

Step 3: Scan the Infected PC:

7. Safely eject the USB flash drive from the clean computer.

8. Boot the infected computer to the Safe Mode.

9. Insert the USB flash drive.

10. Run tk.exe

11. Once the program is open, click on "Full Scan" to begin the malware scanning process.

Step 4: Remove Found Threats:

12. After the scan is complete, Trojan Killer will display a list of detected threats.

13. Click on "Cure PC!" to remove the identified malware from the infected PC.

14. Follow any additional on-screen prompts to complete the removal process.

Step 5: Restart Your Computer:

15. Once the threats are removed, click on "Restart PC" to reboot your computer.

16. Remove the USB flash drive from the infected computer.

Congratulations on effectively removing Protectedscans.com and the concealed threats from your computer! You can now have peace of mind, knowing that they won't resurface again. Thanks to Gridinsoft's capabilities and commitment to cybersecurity, your system is now protected.

Now, you should reset your browser settings. It is possible to do in both manual and automatic manner. The former, obviously, takes more time to complete and may be somewhat complicated if you have never done that. Automated supposes the use of anti-malware programs that can reset all browser settings at once.

Reset your browsers 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 options for each browser. By default, they are set up in a manner that 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 the latter is also able to reset the HOSTS file without any additional commands.

Reset your browsers manually

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

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

After removing the Protectedscans push notifications, it’s time to see if these pop-ups brought any threat to your system. Launch GridinSoft Anti-Malware, and then click on Standard scan. It will be enough in most cases to find and remove malware. The scan will last 5-10 minutes; you are free to use your system during that process.

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).

1. More about this malware type on GridinSoft Encyclopedia.
2. Official Microsoft guide for hosts file reset.