Remove Smscoldne.xyz Pop-up Virus — How to Remove?

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Smscoldne.xyz pop-up notices can appear out of the blue, covering the material of the page you checked or opening your web browser when you don’t wish it to be opened.

Clicking on the Smscoldne.xyz advertisement can trigger the injection of other malware or unwanted programs. In this post, you will see the guide of Smscoldne.xyz popups removal in several ways, and also inspecting your PC for extra malware existence.

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What are Smscoldne.xyz pop-ups?

Smscoldne.xyz popups are an effect of adware action. Adware is a sort of malware that demonstrates to you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click advertisements, which generates a substantial volume of profit for adware representatives. These promotions may consist of sometimes shocking information, or have a link to malevolent content/website, because adware maintainers have no purpose to check the goodness of the content they are going to show – their solitary target is cash.

Smscoldne.xyz push notification

Smscoldne.xyz push notification.

Pop-up advertising itself is an excellent, affordable and extremely productive advertising method1. It makes it possible for the vendor to attach the buyers’ interest to their site, as well as the customers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they intend to buy. When the consumer will get a pop-up notification that the TV set he wishes to buy is provided at the online shop he/she checked out earlier with a 15% price cut, one will surely use this opportunity and purchase it. Taking into consideration the incredibly small cost for the popups and their targeting, such a promotion and marketing instrument is a favorite thing amidst the advertising departments of huge internet sellers.

However, such a successful system could not be missed by malware creators. Ability to demonstrate the popup advertisements by force to the targets of malware attack is a perfect basis for evil-minded adjustments with the popup ads. And Smscoldne.xyz promotions is just one of hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Here is a info for the Smscoldne.xyz site
SiteSmscoldne.xyz
HostingAS14618 Amazon.com, Inc.
United States, Ashburn
Infection TypeAdware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address44.195.137.121
SymptomsAnnoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behaviorGreatvernando, News, News
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Smscoldne.xyz virus?

There are a huge amount of methods of getting contaminated by the adware that cause the Smscoldne.xyz popups storm. A lion’s part of this malware cases is after the free software or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Free software can likewise be downloaded from the main website, and the adware is supplied as a legitimate bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A plenty of people frequently work with the unreliable programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, different apps that are free of cost, and even hacked programs. All of these types of software are unsafe, since it is very simple to include a Smscoldne.xyz malware under the guise of part of the license hacking script, or as a part of the self-made algoritm within the Windows optimization tool.

Smscoldne.xyz popup malware can also be concealed in the ad somewhere on the unusual web page. Such sites are generally filled with bright and blinking advertisements, and their proprietors usually accept any kind of promotions to be posted on their web page. Therefore, clicking on such banners is a risky thing: only the advertisement contractor realizes what will happen when you press this ad. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you can likewise receive something far more damaging, like ransomware or coin miner; the substantial share of coin miners circulation is exactly after the malicious ads.

People dislike popups

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

Potentially undesirable applications, like Smscoldne.xyz pop-up virus may cause a variety of troubles on your computer. Distracting is not the single effect – pop-up notifications may show you the promotions, where you are offered to get another strange program, or “a amazing anti-malware tool”. Scareware is often distributed with the use of the last motto. Potentially unwanted applications, in turn, may have spyware functions. And it is pretty hard to distinguish the undesirable app from a legit one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the potentially unwanted programs and fake antiviruses, popup-related promotions are also chosen as a spreading method by different trojan viruses, for instance – coin miners. The consequences of activity of such viruses is 100% unpleasant, and can cost you several hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not clicking these banners, they may be clicked by whoever who also makes use of your PC – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the things can become much more serious, and it will be much harder to deal with it without information loss. It is recommended to get rid of the viruses with anti-malware programs as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Smscoldne.xyz pop-up advertisements?

The tutorial of Smscoldne.xyz adware removal contains 2 parts. Initially, we need to eliminate the malware, and then fix the consequences of its action. The elimination process is quite simple, because it can be done even with using Microsoft Defender – security tool that is available on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. Nevertheless, because of its substantial resources consumption, along with some defects that may be critical for some kinds of individuals, Defender is oftentimes turned off by the users, so its utilization is probably impossible. Furthermore, various trojan viruses are capable to switch off the embedded antivirus. It is far better to use the separated program that will not have such vulnerabilities.

I would certainly recommend you to utilize Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven antivirus device that will surely erase the malware from your computer and create an invulnerable cover with a Proactive protection feature. However, let’s deal with Smscoldne.xyz adware initially.

Removing Smscoldne.xyz 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 Smscoldne.xyz 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 browsers are reset, you need to make sure that your web browser will definitely be connected the correct DNS while connecting to the site you need. Make a text file named “hosts” on your desktop, then open it and fill it with the following content3:

# 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 trouble that makes the things much more difficult to restore, especially without the anti-malware program. A lot of adware variants that are utilized to show you the Smscoldne.xyz pop-up ads are altering the deep browser settings, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you try to fix your browser settings after your machine was penetrated by pop-up-related malware, your browser will collapse quickly. In some cases, you will see no crash, however, large lag spike after pushing the “settings” key. Browser will stop responding for ~ 30 seconds, and afterwards it will be back to the typical, until you attempt to open settings again.

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 Smscoldne.xyz Pop-ups?

Name: Smscoldne.xyz

Description: Smscoldne.xyz - 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 Smscoldne.xyz push notifications?” or “why do Smscoldne.xyz pop-ups keep appearing on Chrome even after AdBlock installation?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with Smscoldne.xyz 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 recommend it for malware elimination.
  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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