Scan-defender.info Notification Removal — How to Fix Your Browser

Scan-defender.info pop-ups that appear while surfing the Internet are the result of a malware activity that resides within your web browser. Such pop-ups emerge in excessive quantities, diverting and annoying you.

Most of the pop-ups from Scan-defender.info site are not relevant, as it shows any advertising material it receives a deal for. Given that a large number of websites promoted in this fashion are not legitimate, it is clear to expect them to include dangerous components. Specifically, they can expose you to different varieties of online deceptions.

It is better to prevent, than repair and repent!

Removing Scan-defender.info 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

What are Scan-defender.info push notifications?

By some of the characteristics, Scan-defender.info pop-ups are to normal pop-ups you may come across on regular websites. However, all the difference – and malignancy – stems from this specific website. Pages like Scan-defender.info are commonly established with sole intention – to propose unsuspecting users to activate pop-ups and then start spamming them.

Brief description of the Scan-defender.info pop-up ads:

Ads by the Scan-defender.info site are not legit either. At best, those will be entirely irrelevant banners, that will still be irritating considering the frequency. However, more common instances involve advertisements of mysterious deals with 90% off, adult web pages ads or scam attempts. Below are some of the classic patterns for pop-up spam:

• You have a new message on Facebook/Twitter/WhatsApp *link to a phishing copy of the site*
• There are 5 (10,20,50) women near you that wish to chat with you
• Collect your 90% discount coupon on this new, totally not scam shopping site
• Get a huge crypto bonus for signing in on this new crypto exchange website
• Your PC is infected with 15(any number up to 100) viruses, scan your system urgently/contact our tech support
• Use this extremely effective system cleaner to speed up your PC

Due to the illicit marketing model of Scan-defender.info, no authentic companies will actually utilize their promotional offerings. Instead, the whole array of topics I’ve named above is managed by the same scammy actors as those who stand behind Scan-defender.info. At times, upon clicking to the pop-up promotion, you might be redirected to another page that suggests activating pop-up advertisements. The activity of numerous sources of pop-ups can transform your browser into an avenue of a pop-up surge.

Scan-defender.info push notification.

Where did Scan-defender.info pop-ups come from?

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

An additional plausible source of pop-up advertisements is adware, currently active within your system. It alters browser settings in a way so it begins displaying Scan-defender.info pop-ups without your knowledge. However, this scenario is relatively infrequent, as such malware employs its own, more efficient approach to showcasing advertisements.

Are Scan-defender.info pop-up notifications dangerous?

Yes, they are. Initially, they can look non-threatening – just a colourful pop-up that appears a couple times in an hour. However, the things this window promotes differ drastically from what you generally see in pop-up notifications. Scan-defender.info web page is ruled by fraudsters, who deliberately throw hundreds of malicious ads in pop-ups. They also never follow any manners of advertising and can make sporadic pop-up advertisements into a storm of banners. For weak systems, that may be enough to make the system slower. But that is not all troubles these push notifications carry.

As any other thing related to illegal advertising, Scan-defender.info pop-up advertisements lack legit offers. Even when hackers make the ads looking similar to ones from Walmart or Amazon, the website these ads will throw you to are completely different. And these pages may 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, Scan-defender.info pop-ups are not recommended to click on either, and the best solution is to disable them as soon as possible.

How to remove Scan-defender.info pop-ups?

Fortunately, Scan-defender.info pop-up ads removal is pretty easy. They sit in the browser and can’t hide themselves in the system. Nevertheless, as I pointed out before, some push notifications may introduce malicious programs to your computer. It is hard to show all of the cases, and manual malware removal is a poor idea. Therefore, after getting rid of the pop-ups the best option is to use anti-malware software. I’d especially recommend that if you have never clicked “Allow” to pop-up notifications, and they still appeared. This situation can point at malicious software activity. GridinSoft Anti-Malware will perfectly fit both recovery and malware scanning purposes, because of its system recovery functionality and multi-component detection system.

Remove Scan-defender.info 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 Scan-defender.info 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 “Scan-defender.info” 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 Scan-defender.info 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 accomplish in manual or automated way. The former, obviously, requires more time to complete and can 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 website 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 Scan-defender.info 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.