How to remove Thispcprotected pop-ups? — Fix Guide

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Thispcprotected pop-up notices may appear unexpectedly, covering the material of the website you checked or opening your browser when you do not wish it to be opened.

Clicking the Thispcprotected promotion can result in the injection of other malware or unwanted programs. In this guide, you will see the tutorial of Thispcprotected popups clearing in a couple of manners, as well as examining your personal computer for other malware existence.

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What are Thispcprotected pop-ups?

Thispcprotected popups are a consequence of adware action. Adware is a kind of malware that shows you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click advertisements, which generates a large amount of income for adware representatives. These promotions might contain explicit composition, or have a web link to malicious content/website, because adware maintainers have no purpose to check the goodness of the content they are going to show – their solitary target is money.

Thispcprotected push notification

Thispcprotected push notification.

Pop-up advertising itself is a good, low-cost and also really successful advertising solution1. It makes it possible for the vendor to link the customers’ attention to their site, and the buyers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they intend to buy. When the person will get a pop-up alert that the TV set he wishes to purchase is offered at the online store he/she checked out previously with a 15% price cut, one will definitely use this chance and get it. Taking into consideration the extremely low price for the popups and their targeting, such an advertising and marketing tool is a favourite thing amongst the advertising teams of large online retailers.

Nevertheless, such a rewarding strategy could not be missed by malware developers. Option to show the popup advertisements forcibly to the people of malware invasion is a perfect basis for malevolent tricks with the popup ads. And Thispcprotected.com promotions is just one of hundreds that are “employed” in this system.

Here is a short info for the Thispcprotected site
SiteThispcprotected.com
HostingAS16509 Amazon.com, Inc.
Germany, Frankfurt am Main
Infection TypeAdware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address99.86.4.72
SymptomsAnnoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behaviorOurdailystories, Exclusivedealsfinder, Notcomp
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Thispcprotected virus?

There are a huge amount of methods of getting contaminated by the adware that create the Thispcprotected popups storm. A lion’s part of this malware cases is after the freeware or cracked programs, that are distributed on the peering networks. Free software may also be downloaded from the main website, and the adware is delivered as a legitimate bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A plenty of users often make use of the uncertain programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, a wide range of utilities that are free, or perhaps hacked programs. Every one of these sorts of applications are risky, since it is very easy to build in a Thispcprotected malware under the guise of part of the license hacking script, or as a part of the self-made algoritm inside of the Windows optimization tool.

Thispcprotected popup virus may also be concealed in the ad somewhere on the strange website. Such websites are generally loaded with colorful and blinking ads, and their proprietors usually accept any type of promotions to be placed on their page. Therefore, clicking on such banners is a shot in the dark: only the advertisement contractor realizes what will happen when you press this ad. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you can also get something far more unsafe, like ransomware or coin miner; the substantial share of coin miners distribution 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 programs, like Thispcprotected pop-up virus may cause a variety of different troubles on your computer. Distracting is not the only problem – pop-up notifications can present you the ads, where you are offered to get one more strange program, or “a amazing anti-malware tool”. Scareware is usually distributed under the last motto. Potentially unwanted applications, in turn, may have spyware functionality. And it is pretty hard to distinguish the unwanted app from a normal one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the PUPs and fake antiviruses, popup-related promotions are also exploited as a distribution way by different trojan viruses, for example – coin miners. The consequences of actions of such malware is 100% unpleasant, and can cost you hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not tapping these banners, they may be clicked by whoever who also uses your computer – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the things can become much more serious, and it will be much harder to solve it without data loss. It is recommended to remove the viruses with antivirus programs as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Thispcprotected pop-up advertisements?

The guide of Thispcprotected adware removal contains 2 parts. Initially, we need to eliminate the malware, and after that take care of the effects of its activity. The elimination process is pretty simple, due to the fact that it can be executed even with using Microsoft Defender – anti-malware tool that is available on all computers with Windows 8/10. Nevertheless, as a result of its significant resources usage, as well as some bugs that can be crucial for some types of individuals, Defender is often disabled by the users, so its utilization is likely impossible. In addition, different trojan viruses are capable to turn off the embedded antivirus. It is better to use the separated program that will not have such exposures.

I’d suggest you to use Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven antivirus tool that will certainly exterminate the malware from your computer and also make an impenetrable shield with a Proactive protection feature. But let’s handle Thispcprotected adware initially.

Removing Thispcprotected 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 Thispcprotected 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 ensure that your web browser will definitely connect the right DNS while connecting to the site you want. Create a text file named “hosts” on your computer’s desktop, after that 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.

Nevertheless, there is one trouble that makes the things a lot more difficult to repair, specifically without the anti-malware software. The majority of adware variants that are used to show you the Thispcprotected pop-up ads are modifying the deep browser settings, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you try to fix your browser settings after your computer was penetrated by pop-up-related malware, your browser will certainly crash quickly. In some cases, you will see no crash, however, huge lag spike after pressing the “settings” key. Browser will stop responding for ~ 30 secs, and after that it will be back to the typical, until 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 Thispcprotected Pop-ups?

Name: Thispcprotected

Description: Thispcprotected - 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 Thispcprotected.com push notifications?” or “why do Thispcprotected.com pop-ups keep appearing on Chrome even after AdBlock installation?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with Thispcprotected 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 ads on Wikipedia.
  2. GridinSoft Anti-Malware overview and also 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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