Remove Softster.site Pop-up Ads — How to Fix Gude

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Softster.site pop-up notices may show up unexpectedly, covering the subject of the site you explored or opening your web browser when you don’t need it to be opened.

Clicking the Softster.site promotion may trigger the injection of other malware or unwanted programs. In this guide, you will see the guideline of Softster.site popups clearing in multiple ways, as well as examining your system for extra malware existence.

GridinSoft Anti-Malware Review
It is better to prevent, than repair and repent!
Removing Softster.site 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.
Gridinsoft Anti-Malware 6-day trial available.
EULA | Privacy Policy | 10% Off Coupon
Subscribe to our Telegram channel to be the first to know about news and our exclusive materials on information security.

What are Softster.site pop-ups?

Softster.site popups are a result of adware action. Adware is a type of malware that shows you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click ads, which creates a substantial amount of earnings for adware representatives. These promotions might include sometimes shocking information, or have a web link to harmful content/website, due to the fact that adware maintainers have no reason to check the goodness of the web content they are going to show – their solitary target is money.

Softster.site push notification

Softster.site push notification.

Pop-up marketing itself is an excellent, affordable and also very successful advertising method1. It permits the vendor to attach the buyers’ attention to their site, as well as the buyers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they intend to purchase. When the customer will get a pop-up alert that the TV set he desires to buy is provided at the online store he/she saw earlier with a 15% price cut, one will surely use this opportunity and get it. Considering the very low cost for the popups and their targeting, such an advertising and marketing method is a much-loved thing amongst the advertising teams of huge internet stores.

Nonetheless, such a rewarding scheme could not be missed by virus creators. Potential to show the popup advertisements forcibly to the victims of malware attack is an excellent basis for malicious tricks with the popup promotions. And Softster.site advertisements is among hundreds that are “employed” in this system.

Here is a details for the Softster.site site
Site Softster.site
Hosting AS60781 LeaseWeb Netherlands B.V.
Netherlands, Amsterdam
Infection Type Adware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address 95.211.26.202
Symptoms Annoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behavior Crusadebottom, Juicydataage, Instantblueapp
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Softster.site virus?

There are a number of methods of getting contaminated by the adware that result in the Softster.site popups tornado. A lion’s part of this virus cases is after the free software or cracked programs, that are distributed on the peering networks. Free software can also be downloaded from the main web page, and the adware is offered as a legitimate bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A huge amount of users frequently utilize the unreliable programs from untrusted providers: abandonware, various tools that are free, and even hacked programs. All of these kinds of applications are risky, due to the fact that it is extremely easy to include a Softster.site malware under the cover of part of the license hacking script, or as a component of the self-made algoritm within the Windows optimization tool.

Softster.site popup virus can likewise be concealed in the advertisement somewhere on the odd web page. Such web pages are usually packed with intense and blinking advertisements, and their proprietors generally approve any promos to be posted on their page. Hence, clicking on such banners is a shot in the dark: only the advertisement provider knows what will happen when you press this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you can also receive something a lot more dangerous, like ransomware or coin miner; the substantial share of coin miners distribution is exactly after the malicious advertisements.

People dislike popups

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

Potentially undesirable programs, like Softster.site pop-up virus may cause a wide range of troubles on your personal computer. Distracting is not the single effect – pop-up notifications can show you the advertisements, where you are offered to download another dubious application, or “a effective security tool”. Scareware is often spread under the last motto. Potentially unwanted applications, in turn, may have spyware functions. And it is quite hard to distinguish the undesirable app from a good one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the potentially unwanted programs and pseudo antiviruses, popup-related promotions are also used as a spreading method by various trojan viruses, for example – coin miners. The consequences of actions of such viruses is 100% unpleasant, and can cost you several hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not interacting with these promotions, they can be clicked by whoever who also makes use of your personal computer – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the situation may become much more serious, and it will be much harder to solve it without information loss. It is recommended to remove the viruses with anti-malware applications as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Softster.site pop-up advertisements?

The manual of Softster.site adware elimination includes 2 parts. First, we need to remove the malware, and after that take care of the effects of its action. The removal process is quite simple, since it can be done even with making use of Microsoft Defender – anti-malware tool that is available on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. Nonetheless, as a result of its significant resources consumption, along with some errors that may be critical for some kinds of users, Defender is oftentimes disabled by the users, so its use is probably impossible. Additionally, various trojan viruses have the ability to switch off the embedded antivirus. It is much better to use the separated program that will not have such exposures.

I’d advise you to use Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven anti-malware tool that will surely exterminate the malware from your PC and create an invulnerable shield with a Proactive protection function. However, let’s take care of Softster.site adware first.

Removing Softster.site 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 Softster.site 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 definitely connect the right DNS while connecting to the website you need. Make a text file named “hosts” on your pc’s desktop, then 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.

Nonetheless, there is one trouble that makes the things much more difficult to restore, particularly without the anti-malware program. Most of adware variants that are used to show you the Softster.site pop-up promotions are altering the deep browser settings, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you try to fix your browser settings after your PC was penetrated by pop-up-related malware, your browser will certainly crash quickly. In certain cases, you will see no crash, however, large lag spike after pressing the “settings” key. Browser will stop reacting for ~ 30 secs, and after that it will be back to the normal, till you try 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 Softster.site Pop-ups?

Name: Softster.site

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

Sending
User Review
3.5 (4 votes)
Comments Rating 0 (0 reviews)

References

  1. More about pop-up ads 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.

Leave a Reply

Sending