Scan-defender.pro Ads Removal Guide — Fix Push Notification

Scan-defender.pro pop-ups that appear while navigating the Internet are the result of a malware activity that resides inside your web browser. Such pop-ups emerge in excessive quantities, disrupting and bothering you.

Most of the pop-ups from Scan-defender.pro site are irrelevant to your choices, as it shows any promotional elements it receives a contract for. Given that many sites promoted in this manner are not benevolent, it is apparent to anticipate them to include malicious content. In particular, they can expose you to various forms of web scams.

What are Scan-defender.pro pop-up advertisements?

By certain attributes, Scan-defender.pro pop-ups are to normal pop-ups you may experience on legit sites. However, all the distinction – and detriment – arises from this exact website. Pages like Scan-defender.pro are often created with just one objective – to offer unsuspecting individuals to enable pop-ups and then begin spamming them.

Brief summary of the Scan-defender.pro pop-ups:

Name	Scan-defender.pro
Hosting	AS14061 DigitalOcean, LLC Netherlands, Amsterdam
IP Address	188.166.29.65
Malware type	Adware¹
Effect	Unwanted pop-up advertisements
Hazard level	Medium
Malware source	Apps from third-party websites, ads on dubious websites
Similar behavior	Burnsirleft, News, Check
Removal method	To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

Ads by the Scan-defender.pro site are not legitimate either. At best, those will be completely unrelated ads, that will still be bothersome considering the frequency. Though, more frequent instances encompass advertisements of mysterious deals with 90% off, adult sites ads or scam attempts. Below are some of the classic patterns for pop-up notifications 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 unlawful marketing approach of Scan-defender.pro, no legitimate corporations will really employ their advertisement services. Meanwhile, the complete range of subjects I’ve delineated above is handled by the same scammy actors as those who stand behind Scan-defender.pro. Occasionally, upon clicking to the pop-up promotion, you might be redirected to another page that offers activating pop-up advertisements. The activity of multiple origins of pop-ups can transform your browser into an outlet of a pop-up surge.

Scan-defender.pro push notification.

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

The main and most common technique to access the pop-up spamming site is to browse content on warez sites, pages containing pirated content, and the like. The individuals responsible for such dubious venues aim to offset expenses via redirects, often as a promotion tactic. This type of redirection is commonly known as an “anti-bot verification”.

A further plausible origin of pop-up advertisements is adware, currently active inside of your system. It modifies browser settings in a manner so it starts displaying Scan-defender.pro pop-ups without your consent. However, this scenario is relatively uncommon, as such malware employs its own, more effective approach to showcasing advertisements.

Are Scan-defender.pro push notifications dangerous?

Yes, they are. At the surface, they may look non-threatening – just a blinking window that appears from time to time. However, the contents of this window differ drastically from what you used to see in pop-ups. Scan-defender.pro site is ruled by crooks, who intentionally show hundreds of irrelevant ads in pop-ups. They also never follow any manners of advertising and can make sporadic pop-up advertisements into a hurricane of promotions. For weak computers, that may be enough to make the system slower. But that is not all troubles these pop-up notifications carry.

As any other thing related to illegal ads, Scan-defender.pro pop-up ads don’t have legit offers. Even though hackers make the banners similar to ones from Walmart or Amazon, the site these ads 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 advertisements 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.pro 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.pro pop-ups?

Reset your browsers manually

To reset Edge, do the following steps:

Open “Settings and more” tab in upper right corner, then find here “Settings” button. In the appeared menu, choose “Reset settings” option:

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:

Open Menu tab (three strips in upper right corner) and click the “Help” button. In the appeared menu choose “troubleshooting information”:

The first step to revert Mozilla Firefox

In the next screen, find the “Refresh Firefox” option:

If you use Google Chrome

Open Settings tab, find the “Advanced” button. In the extended tab choose the “Reset and clean up” button:

In the appeared list, click on the “Restore settings to their original defaults”:

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

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:

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:



# 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.

Scan your system for possible viruses

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).

References

Official Microsoft guide for hosts file reset.