Remove Web-guardian.xyz Virus — How to Fix Guide

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Web-guardian.xyz pop-up alerts may show up unexpectedly, covering the subject of the page you checked or opening your browser when you do not desire it to be opened.

Clicking the Web-guardian.xyz ad can result in the injection of other malware or unwanted programs. In this article, you will see the guide of Web-guardian.xyz popups removal in multiple methods, as well as checking your PC for extra viruses existence.

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What are Web-guardian.xyz pop-ups?

Web-guardian.xyz popups are a result of adware activity. Adware is a kind of malware that shows you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click promotions, which produces a major volume of revenue for adware suppliers. These ads may include explicit material, or have a link to malicious content/website, considering that adware maintainers have no reason to check the goodness of the web content they are going to show – their solitary target is money.

Web-guardian.xyz push notification

Web-guardian.xyz push notification.

Pop-up marketing itself is a very good, low-priced and also very efficient advertising tool1. It enables the vendor to link the buyers’ attention to their website, as well as the buyers to receive the dynamic updates on the goods they intend to purchase. When the consumer will get a pop-up notification that the TV set he wishes to purchase is provided at the online shop he/she visited previously with a 15% discount, one will undoubtedly use this opportunity and buy it. Considering the exceptionally low cost for the popups and their targeting, such an advertising tool is a much-loved thing amidst the advertising teams of large online retail stores.

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

Here is a short info for the Web-guardian.xyz
Site Web-guardian.xyz
Hosting AS13335 Cloudflare, Inc.
United States, San Francisco
Infection Type Adware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address 172.67.216.26
Symptoms Annoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behavior News, Clusionomer, Notifinfoback
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Web-guardian.xyz virus?

There are a lot of methods of getting contaminated by the adware that result in the Web-guardian.xyz popups storm. 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 additionally be downloaded from the official website, and the adware is delivered as a legal bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A lot of individuals regularly work with the dubious programs from untrusted providers: abandonware, various tools that are free of cost, and even hacked programs. All of these types of software are dangerous, since it is extremely simple to include a Web-guardian.xyz 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.

Web-guardian.xyz popup malware can also be concealed in the ad somewhere on the strange website. Such websites are typically loaded with bright and blinking ads, and their owners generally accept any kind of promos to be published on their web page. Therefore, clicking such banners is a shot in the dark: only the ad provider knows what will occur when you press this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or undesirable programs, you may likewise receive something a lot more hazardous, 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 unwanted applications, like Web-guardian.xyz pop-up virus can cause a lot of troubles on your personal computer. Distracting is not the only problem – pop-ups can show you the promotions, where you are offered to get another strange application, or “a perfect security tool”. Scareware is often spread under the last motto. Potentially undesirable applications, in turn, can have spyware functions. And it is very hard to distinguish the unwanted app from a legit one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the potentially unwanted programs and dubious antiviruses, popup-related advertisements are also exploited as a spreading method by various trojan viruses, for example – coin miners. The consequences of activity of such viruses is 100% unpleasant, and can cost you hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not interacting with these advertisements, they may be clicked by someone who also makes use of your computer – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the situation can become much more serious, and it will be much harder to solve it without data and money loss. It is recommended to remove the viruses with antivirus applications as soon as possible.

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

The guide of Web-guardian.xyz adware clearing contains 2 sections. Initially, we need to get rid of the malware, and after that fix the results of its action. The removal process is really simple, because it can be performed even with using Microsoft Defender – security software that is present on all computers with Windows 8/10. Nonetheless, due to its large resources usage, along with some bugs that may be crucial for some groups of individuals, Defender is often turned off by the users, so its utilization is probably impossible. Moreover, a variety of trojan viruses have the ability to shut off the embedded antivirus. It is far better to use the separated program that will not have such vulnerabilities.

I would certainly suggest you to utilize Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven antivirus device that will certainly erase the malware from your system and also make an invulnerable cover with a Proactive protection function. However, let’s take care of Web-guardian.xyz adware first.

Removing Web-guardian.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 Web-guardian.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 ensure that your browser will definitely be connected the right DNS while connecting to the site you need. Make a text file titled “hosts” on your pc’s desktop, after that 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.

However, there is one issue that makes the things a lot harder to restore, specifically without the anti-malware software. The majority of adware versions that are utilized to show you the Web-guardian.xyz pop-up advertisements are altering the deep browser setups, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you try to fix your browser settings after your system was infected by pop-up-related malware, your browser will certainly collapse soon. Sometimes, you will see no crash, however, significant lag spike after pushing the “settings” key. Browser will stop responding for ~ 30 secs, and after that it will be back to the normal, up 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 Web-guardian.xyz Pop-ups?

Name: Web-guardian.xyz

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

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