Remove Protectyourvpn.com Virus — How to Fix Guide

Written by Wilbur Woodham

Undesirable Protectyourvpn.com pop-up notices can show up unexpectedly, covering the content of the website you visited or opening your web browser when you do not desire it to be opened. Clicking the Protectyourvpn.com pop-up promotion can trigger the injection of other malware or unwanted programs. In this post, you will see the tutorial of Protectyourvpn.com popups removal in a couple of ways, and also checking your system for other malware presence.

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What are Protectyourvpn.com pop-ups?

Protectyourvpn.com popups are a result of adware presence. Adware is a kind of malware that shows you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click ads, which produces a massive amount of income for adware distributors. These ads might have sometimes shocking information, or have a link to malevolent content/website, considering that adware maintainers have no reason to inspect the goodness of the material they are going to reveal – their solitary target is money.

Protectyourvpn.com push notification

Protectyourvpn.com push notification.

Pop-up promotions itself is a very good, affordable and really effective marketing method1 It makes it possible for the seller to link the customers’ attention to their site, as well as the customers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they intend to purchase. When the customer will get a pop-up notification that the TV set he desires to purchase is provided at the online store he/she visited previously with a 15% price cut, one will surely use this possibility and purchase it. Taking into consideration the incredibly small cost for the popups and their targeting, such an advertising and marketing tool is a much-loved thing amongst the marketing departments of huge online retail stores.

However, such a profitable strategy could not be missed by malware developers. Ability to demonstrate the popup advertisements by force to the victims of malware attack is an excellent basis for evil-minded manipulations with the popup ads. And Protectyourvpn.com promotions is one of hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Here is a details for the Protectyourvpn.com
SiteProtectyourvpn.com
HostingAS14061 DigitalOcean, LLC
United States, Clifton
Infection TypeAdware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address64.225.2.103
SymptomsAnnoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behaviorPushmono.com, Slempear.online, Thgworldwideblog.com
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Protectyourvpn.com virus?

There are a plenty of ways of becoming infected by the adware that lead to the Protectyourvpn.com popups storm. A lion’s part of this malware instances is after the freeware or cracked programs, that are distributed on the peering networks. Free software may also be downloaded from the official web page, and the adware is offered as a legit bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A lot of individuals frequently use the dubious programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, various utilities that are free of cost, and even hacked programs. All of these kinds of programs are unsafe, due to the fact that it is quite simple to build in a Protectyourvpn.com 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.

Protectyourvpn.com popup malware can also be concealed in the ad somewhere on the strange web page. Such sites are typically packed with colorful and blinking ads, and their proprietors usually approve any type of promos to be posted on their page. Thus, clicking such banners is a shot in the dark: only the ad contractor realizes what will happen when you press this ad. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or undesirable programs, you can also get something far more risky, like ransomware or coin miner; the large share of coin miners circulation is exactly after the malicious advertisements.

People dislike popups

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

How can I get rid of Protectyourvpn.com pop-up advertisements?

The guide of Protectyourvpn.com adware elimination includes 2 parts. Initially, we need to get rid of the malware, and then repair the consequences of its activity. The elimination procedure is really easy, since it can be done even with using Microsoft Defender – anti-malware tool that is present on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. Nonetheless, due to its significant resources usage, as well as some problems that may be crucial for some groups of individuals, Defender is oftentimes disabled by the users, so its use is likely impossible. Furthermore, various trojan viruses have the ability to switch 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 antivirus tool that will surely exterminate the viruses from your personal computer and create an invulnerable cover with a Proactive protection feature. But let’s handle Protectyourvpn.com adware initially.

Removing Protectyourvpn.com 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.
  • Gridinsoft Anti-Malware during the scan process

  • 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.
  • GridinSoft Anti-Malware scan results

  • When the scan is over, you may choose the action for each detected virus. For all files of Protectyourvpn.com malware the default option is “Delete”. Press “Apply” to finish the malware removal.
  • GridinSoft Anti-Malware - After Cleaning

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. 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 web browsers are reset, you need to make sure that your browser will connect the correct 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:

# 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.

However, there is one issue that makes the things a lot more difficult to restore, particularly without the anti-malware software. The majority of adware variations that are used to show you the Protectyourvpn.com pop-up ads are adjusting the deep browser configurations, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you try to change your browser settings after your PC was infected by pop-up-related malware, your browser will crash soon. Sometimes, you will see no crash, but large lag spike after pressing the “settings” key. Browser will stop responding for ~ 30 seconds, and after that 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.

Tools tab in GridinSoft Anti-Malware

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.

Reset Browser Settings tab in GridinSoft Anti-Malware

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 Protectyourvpn.com Pop-ups?

Name: Protectyourvpn.com

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

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

About the author

Wilbur Woodham

I was a technical writer from early in my career, and consider IT Security one of my foundational skills. I’m sharing my experience here, and I hope you find it useful.

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