Remove Windowsdetector Pop-up Ads — How to Fix Gude

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Windowsdetector pop-up notifications can appear out of the blue, covering the content of the website you visited or opening your web browser when you don’t desire it to be opened.

Clicking the Windowsdetector ad can result in the injection of various malware or unwanted programs. In this article, you will see the manual of Windowsdetector popups clearing in multiple ways, and also checking your PC for other malware presence.

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What are Windowsdetector pop-ups?

Windowsdetector popups are an outcome of adware action. Adware is a type of malware that shows you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click promotions, which creates a substantial amount of income for adware representatives. These ads might have explicit information, or have a link to malevolent content/website, considering that adware maintainers have no reason to check the goodness of the web content they are going to reveal – their single target is cash.

Windowsdetector push notification

Windowsdetector push notification.

Pop-up marketing itself is an excellent, low-cost and also really productive marketing instrument1. It makes it possible for the vendor to attach the customers’ interest to their site, and the customers to receive the dynamic updates on the goods they wish to purchase. When the customer will get a pop-up notification that the TV set he likes to buy is available at the online shop he/she saw earlier with a 15% price cut, one will definitely use this possibility and buy it. Taking into consideration the very low cost for the popups and their targeting, such a promotion and marketing tool is a much-loved thing amidst the advertising teams of huge online retailers.

Nevertheless, such a successful strategy could not be missed by malware creators. Option to show the popup advertisements by force to the victims of malware attack is a great basis for malevolent adjustments with the popup ads. And Windowsdetector.com ads is just one of hundreds that are “employed” in this system.

Here is a short summary for the Windowsdetector
SiteWindowsdetector.com
HostingAS13335 Cloudflare, Inc.
United States, San Francisco
Infection TypeAdware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address172.67.197.77
SymptomsAnnoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behaviorEukwasan, Thekolnews, Tobepartou
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Windowsdetector virus?

There are a huge amount of methods of getting infected by the adware that cause the Windowsdetector popups tornado. A lion’s part of this malware incidents is after the free software or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Free software may additionally be downloaded from the main website, and the adware is delivered as a legit bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A lot of users often make use of the dubious programs from untrusted providers: abandonware, different apps that are free, or even hacked programs. All of these kinds of software are risky, due to the fact that it is very simple to integrate a Windowsdetector 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.

Windowsdetector popup virus can also be hidden in the advertisement somewhere on the strange web page. Such websites are generally packed with colorful and blinking ads, and their owners typically permit any promotions to be placed on their page. Therefore, clicking such banners is a shot in the dark: only the advertisement contractor realizes what will happen when you click this ad. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you may also get something a lot more hazardous, like ransomware or coin miner; the large share of coin miners circulation 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 programs, like Windowsdetector popup virus can provoke a variety of different troubles on your personal computer. Distracting is not the single effect – pop-ups can present you the banners, where you are offered to download another dubious program, or “a effective anti-malware tool”. Scareware is usually spread under the last motto. Potentially undesirable applications, in turn, can have spyware functionality. And it is pretty 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 exploited as a distribution method 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 promotions, they can be clicked by someone who also makes use of your PC – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the situation may become much more serious, and it will be much harder to deal with it without data loss. It is recommended to eliminate the viruses with anti-malware programs as soon as possible.

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

The tutorial of Windowsdetector adware removal contains 2 parts. First, we need to exterminate the malware, and then correct the consequences of its action. The elimination procedure is very simple, since it can be done even with the use of Microsoft Defender – anti-malware tool that is available on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. However, as a result of its significant resources utilization, along with some bugs that may be crucial for some categories of individuals, Defender is oftentimes disabled by the users, so its usage is likely impossible. Furthermore, a wide range of trojan viruses are able to shut off the embedded antivirus. It is better to make use of the separated program that will not have such weakness.

I would certainly recommend you to use Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven antivirus device that will certainly erase the viruses from your system and make an impenetrable cover with a Proactive protection function. But let’s handle Windowsdetector adware first.

Removing Windowsdetector 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 Windowsdetector 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 be connected the accurate 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 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.

Nonetheless, there is one problem that makes things a lot harder to repair, particularly without the anti-malware program. A lot of adware variants that are utilized to show you the Windowsdetector pop-up advertisements are altering the deep browser setups, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you attempt to change 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, but huge lag spike after pushing the “settings” key. Browser will stop responding for ~ 30 secs, and then 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 Windowsdetector Pop-ups?

Name: Windowsdetector

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