How to remove Spotcontent.ru pop-ups? — Fix Guide

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Spotcontent.ru pop-up notifications can appear out of the blue, covering the post of the site you checked or opening your browser when you don’t wish it to be opened.

Clicking the Spotcontent.ru advertisement can result in the injection of other malware or unwanted programs. In this article, you will see the guideline of Spotcontent.ru popups removal in multiple methods, as well as examining your personal computer for additional malware existence.

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What are Spotcontent.ru pop-ups?

Spotcontent.ru popups are a result of adware activity. Adware is a kind of malware that shows you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click ads, which generates a large volume of earnings for adware suppliers. These ads might include explicit information, or have a link to harmful content/website, because adware maintainers have no reason to check the goodness of the material they are going to reveal – their single target is cash.

Spotcontent.ru push notification

Spotcontent.ru push notification.

Pop-up advertising itself is a very good, low-priced and extremely efficient advertising solution1. It makes it possible for the seller to link the customers’ attention to their website, and the customers to receive the dynamic updates on the goods they want to purchase. When the customer will get a pop-up alert that the TV set he wishes to purchase is provided at the online shop he/she checked out previously with a 15% price cut, one will definitely use this chance and purchase it. Considering the extremely low cost for the popups and their targeting, such an advertising and marketing instrument is a favourite thing amongst the advertising departments of big online sellers.

Nevertheless, such a rewarding plan could not be missed by malware developers. Potential to demonstrate the popup ads forcibly to the victims of malware invasion is a perfect basis for malevolent manipulations with the popup ads. And Spotcontent.ru ads is one of hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Here is a short details for the Spotcontent.ru site
SiteSpotcontent.ru
HostingAS14061 DigitalOcean, LLC
Netherlands, Amsterdam
Infection TypeAdware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address104.248.207.50
SymptomsAnnoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behaviorGcouncerne, Fixstrongoverlythefile, Live
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Spotcontent.ru virus?

There are a lot of ways of becoming contaminated by the adware that lead to the Spotcontent.ru popups tornado. A lion’s part of this malware incidents is after the free software or cracked programs, that are distributed on the peering networks. Free software may likewise be downloaded from the main website, and the adware is offered as a legal bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A number of people frequently utilize the dubious programs from untrusted providers: abandonware, different utilities that are free of cost, or perhaps hacked programs. Every one of these kinds of applications are risky, since it is very easy to build in a Spotcontent.ru 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.

Spotcontent.ru popup malware may likewise be hidden in the ad somewhere on the odd site. Such web pages are typically filled with intense and blinking ads, and their proprietors often accept any promotions to be published on their page. Thus, clicking such banners is a shot in the dark: only the ad contractor knows what will happen when you press this ad. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or undesirable programs, you may likewise receive something far more damaging, like ransomware or coin miner; the big 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 Spotcontent.ru pop-up virus may provoke a lot of different problems on your PC. Distracting is not the single effect – pop-up notifications can display you the ads, where you are offered to get another strange application, or “a effective anti-malware tool”. Scareware is usually spread with the last motto. Potentially unwanted applications, in turn, may have spyware functionality. And it is very hard to distinguish the undesirable app from a legit one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the potentially unwanted programs and dubious antiviruses, popup-related ads are also used as a spreading way by various trojan viruses, for instance – coin miners. The consequences of activity of such viruses is 100% unwanted, and can cost you hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not clicking these ads, they can be clicked by someone who also makes use of your computer – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the situation may become much more serious, and it will be much harder to deal with it without information loss. It is recommended to eliminate the viruses with anti-malware applications as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Spotcontent.ru pop-up advertisements?

The tutorial of Spotcontent.ru adware clearing includes 2 sections. First, we need to eliminate the malware, and then deal with the results of its action. The elimination task is very easy, because it may be executed even with the use of Microsoft Defender – security tool that is present on all computers with Windows 8/10. Nevertheless, because of its significant resources usage, as well as some defects that may be pivotal for some categories of individuals, Defender is often disabled by the users, so its use is likely impossible. Moreover, different trojan viruses are capable to switch off the embedded antivirus. It is much better to use the separated program that will not have such vulnerabilities.

I would certainly suggest you to use Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven antivirus device that will certainly exterminate the viruses from your computer and make an invulnerable shield with a Proactive protection function. But let’s manage Spotcontent.ru adware initially.

Removing Spotcontent.ru 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 Spotcontent.ru 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 web browser will be connected the right DNS while connecting to the web page you need. Create a text file titled “hosts” on your desktop, then open it and fill it with the following text3:

# 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 issue that makes the things much harder to fix, specifically without the anti-malware software. A lot of adware versions that are utilized to show you the Spotcontent.ru pop-up advertisements 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, huge lag spike after pressing the “settings” key. Browser will stop responding for ~ 30 secs, and then it will be back to the normal, till 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 Spotcontent.ru Pop-ups?

Name: Spotcontent.ru

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