How to remove Track-scanner pop-ups? — Fix Guide

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Track-scanner pop-up notices can show up out of the blue, covering the content of the page you went to or opening your web browser when you don’t want it to be opened.

Clicking the Track-scanner advertisement can trigger the injection of various malware or unwanted programs. In this post, you will see the guide of Track-scanner popups clearing in a couple of ways, and also checking your system for additional malware existence.

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What are Track-scanner pop-ups?

Track-scanner popups are an effect of adware presence. Adware is a kind of malware that suggests you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click ads, which creates a major amount of profit for adware representatives. These promotions might contain sometimes shocking information, or have a link to malevolent content/website, due to the fact that adware maintainers have no purpose to check the goodness of the web content they are going to reveal – their single target is money.

Track-scanner push notification

Track-scanner push notification.

Pop-up marketing itself is a good, affordable and also extremely successful advertising instrument1. It allows the seller to attach the customers’ interest to their website, as well as the buyers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they wish to buy. When the consumer will receive a pop-up notification that the TV set he desires to purchase is provided at the online store he/she visited earlier with a 15% price cut, one will undoubtedly use this possibility and purchase it. Considering the very low price for the popups and their targeting, such an advertising and marketing tool is a favourite thing amidst the advertising teams of large internet retailers.

However, such a profitable strategy could not be missed by malware creators. Ability to demonstrate the popup advertisements forcibly to the people of malware attack is an ideal basis for evil-minded manipulations with the popup advertisements. And Track-scanner.com advertisements is one of hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Here is a summary for the Track-scanner site
SiteTrack-scanner.com
HostingAS13335 Cloudflare, Inc.
United States, San Francisco
Infection TypeAdware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address172.67.207.110
SymptomsAnnoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behaviorBoot, Conatysystems, Boot
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Track-scanner virus?

There are a number of methods of getting infected by the adware that result in the Track-scanner popups tornado. A lion’s part of this computer virus 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 provided as a legal bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A lot of users frequently use the dubious programs from untrusted providers: abandonware, different apps that are free of cost, or even hacked programs. Every one of these sorts of software are risky, since it is extremely easy to build in a Track-scanner 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.

Track-scanner popup virus can also be concealed in the promotion somewhere on the odd website. Such websites are usually packed with colorful and blinking ads, and their proprietors usually permit any type of promos to be posted on their page. Hence, clicking on such banners is a risky thing: only the ad contractor knows what will occur when you click this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or undesirable programs, you may likewise receive something much more dangerous, like ransomware or coin miner; the substantial share of coin miners distribution is exactly after the malicious promotions.

People dislike popups

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

Potentially undesirable applications, like Track-scanner popup virus may cause a variety of problems on your PC. Distracting is not the single effect – pop-up notifications can display you the banners, where you are offered to get one more strange application, or “a perfect anti-malware tool”. Scareware is usually spread with the last motto. Potentially undesirable applications, in turn, may have spyware functionality. And it is very hard to distinguish the unwanted app from a good one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the potentially unwanted programs and pseudo antiviruses, popup-related ads are also used as a distribution method by various trojan viruses, for example – coin miners. The consequences of actions of such malware is 100% unwanted, and can cost you hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not clicking these ads, they may be clicked by someone 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 eliminate the viruses with antivirus applications as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Track-scanner pop-up advertisements?

The tutorial of Track-scanner adware elimination contains 2 sections. First, we need to remove the malware, and then fix the results of its action. The removal task is very easy, due to the fact that it can be performed even with the use of Microsoft Defender – anti-virus tool that is available on all computers with Windows 8/10. However, because of its large resources consumption, along with some defects that may be serious for some groups of individuals, Defender is frequently turned off by the users, so its use is likely impossible. Furthermore, a variety of trojan viruses are capable to turn off the embedded antivirus. It is much better to use the separated program that will not have such vulnerabilities.

I would certainly advise you to utilize Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven security tool that will surely eliminate the malware from your computer and also create an impenetrable cover with a Proactive protection feature. However, let’s take care of Track-scanner adware first.

Removing Track-scanner 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 Track-scanner 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 ensure that your web browser will definitely connect the correct DNS while connecting to the website you want. Create a text file named “hosts” on your computer’s 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.

Nevertheless, there is one trouble that makes the things a lot more difficult to restore, specifically without the anti-malware program. A lot of adware variations that are used to show you the Track-scanner pop-up advertisements are modifying the deep browser configurations, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you attempt to change your browser settings after your system was penetrated by pop-up-related malware, your browser will certainly crash soon. In certain cases, you will see no crash, but large lag spike after pushing the “settings” key. Browser will stop reacting 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 Track-scanner Pop-ups?

Name: Track-scanner

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