Remove Xcgter Pop-up Ads — How to Fix Gude

Xcgter pop-up alerts may appear unexpectedly, covering the post of the site you checked or opening your web browser when you do not want it to be opened.

Clicking the Xcgter advertisement can trigger the injection of different malware or unwanted programs. In this article, you will see the tutorial of Xcgter popups clearing in multiple ways, and also inspecting your system for additional malware presence.

It is better to prevent, than repair and repent!

Removing Xcgter manually may take hours and may damage your PC in the process. I recommend you to download GridinSoft Anti-Malware for threats removal. Allows to complete scan and cure your PC during the trial period.

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What are Xcgter pop-ups?

Xcgter popups are an effect of adware activity. Adware is a kind of malware that shows you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click ads, which creates a massive volume of income for adware representatives. These promotions may include sometimes shocking information, or have a web link to harmful content/website, because adware maintainers have no reason to examine the goodness of the material they are going to reveal – their solitary target is cash.

Xcgter push notification.

Pop-up advertising itself is an excellent, low-cost and extremely productive marketing method¹. It permits the vendor to link the customers’ interest to their site, and the customers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they wish to buy. When the customer will get a pop-up alert that the TV set he wishes to purchase is available at the online shop he/she checked out earlier with a 15% price cut, one will undoubtedly use this opportunity and get it. Taking into consideration the very low price for the popups and their targeting, such an advertising and marketing tool is a favorite thing amongst the advertising teams of huge online stores.

Nevertheless, such a successful system could not be missed by malware developers. Potential to show the popup ads forcibly to the victims of malware attack is a great basis for evil-minded adjustments with the popup advertisements. And Xcgter.com advertisements is just one of hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Here is a short info for the Xcgter

How have I got the Xcgter virus?

There are a lot of ways of becoming contaminated by the adware that cause the Xcgter popups tornado. A lion’s part of this malware instances is after the free software or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Freeware may additionally be downloaded from the main web page, and the adware is provided as a legit bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A number of users regularly utilize the dubious programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, different apps that are free, or even hacked programs. All of these sorts of applications are dangerous, since it is extremely simple to include a Xcgter malware under the guise of part of the license hacking script, or as a component of the self-made algoritm within the Windows optimization tool.

Xcgter popup virus may likewise be hidden in the promotion somewhere on the strange web page. Such web pages are in most cases packed with intense and blinking ads, and their owners usually accept any type of promotions to be published on their page. Thus, clicking on such banners is a risky thing: only the advertisement provider realizes what will occur when you press this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or undesirable programs, you may additionally receive something much more dangerous, like ransomware or coin miner; the substantial share of coin miners distribution is exactly after the malicious advertisements.

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

Potentially unwanted programs, like Xcgter popup virus can initiate a lot of problems on your PC. Distracting is not the single effect – pop-ups may present you the advertisements, where you are offered to download one more strange program, or “a effective anti-malware tool”. Scareware is usually distributed under the last motto. Potentially unwanted applications, in turn, may have spyware functions. And it is pretty hard to distinguish the undesirable app from a good one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the potentially unwanted programs and dubious antiviruses, popup-related advertisements are also chosen as a distribution method by different trojan viruses, for instance – coin miners. The consequences of actions of such viruses is 100% unwanted, and can cost you hundreds or even thousands of dollars. And even if you are not interacting with these banners, 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 and money loss. It is recommended to wipe out the viruses with antivirus programs as soon as possible.

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

The tutorial of Xcgter adware elimination contains 2 sections. First, we need to eliminate the malware, and afterwards correct the results of its activity. The elimination process is very simple, since it can be performed even with making use of Microsoft Defender – security software that is available on all computers with Windows 8/10. Nevertheless, due to its large resources utilization, as well as some problems that may be pivotal for some categories of users, Defender is frequently turned off by the users, so its use is likely impossible. What’s more, different trojan viruses are able to turn off the embedded antivirus. It is far better to make use of the separated program that will not have such exposures.

I’d advise you to use Gridinsoft Anti-Malware² – a well-proven security tool that will definitely wipe out the malware from your system and make an impenetrable shield with a Proactive protection function. But let’s take care of Xcgter adware initially.

Removing Xcgter 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.

• 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.

• When the scan is over, you may choose the action for each detected virus. For all files of Xcgter malware the default option is “Delete”. Press “Apply” to finish the malware removal.

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. 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. In the next screen, find the “Refresh Firefox” option :

After choosing this option, you will see the next message :

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 browser will connect the right DNS while connecting to the website you need. Create a text file named “hosts” on your desktop, after that open it and fill it with the following content³:

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 things much more difficult to repair, particularly without the anti-malware software. A lot of adware variants that are used to show you the Xcgter pop-up promotions are altering the deep browser settings, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you attempt to change your browser settings after your machine was infected by pop-up-related malware, your browser will certainly collapse soon. In certain cases, you will see no crash, but significant lag spike after pressing the “settings” key. Browser will stop responding for ~ 30 seconds, and then it will be back to the typical, until you attempt to open settings one more time.

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.

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.

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 Xcgter Pop-ups?

Name: Xcgter

Description: Xcgter - 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 Xcgter.com push notifications?” or “why do Xcgter.com pop-ups keep appearing on Chrome even after AdBlock installation?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with Xcgter 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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1. More about pop-up ads on Wikipedia.
2. GridinSoft Anti-Malware overview and also the reasons why I recommend it for malware removal.
3. Official Microsoft guide for hosts file reset.