Remove A-pigeon-wmca1.click Pop-up Virus — How to Remove?

Written by Wilbur Woodham
A-pigeon-wmca1.click pop-up notices can show up out of the blue, covering the subject of the site you checked or opening your browser when you do not need it to be opened.

Clicking on the A-pigeon-wmca1.click ad may result in the injection of various malware or unwanted programs. In this article, you will see the manual of A-pigeon-wmca1.click popups clearing in a couple of methods, and also checking your PC for other viruses presence.

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What are A-pigeon-wmca1.click pop-ups?

A-pigeon-wmca1.click popups are an outcome of adware presence. Adware is a kind of malware that presents you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click ads, which creates a significant volume of income for adware distributors. These advertisements may include explicit information, or have a web link to malicious content/website, since adware maintainers have no reason to examine the goodness of the web content they are going to show – their solitary target is cash.

A-pigeon-wmca1.click push notification

A-pigeon-wmca1.click push notification.

Pop-up advertising itself is an excellent, low-priced and also very efficient marketing solution1. It permits the seller to link the customers’ attention to their site, as well as the customers to receive the dynamic updates on the goods they intend to purchase. When the consumer will receive a pop-up notification that the TV set he likes to purchase is provided at the online shop he/she visited earlier with a 15% price cut, one will surely use this possibility and get it. Taking into consideration the exceptionally low cost for the popups and their targeting, such a promotion and marketing instrument is a favorite thing amidst the advertising teams of big internet retail stores.

However, such a successful plan could not be missed by malware creators. Potential to demonstrate the popup advertisements by force to the targets of malware invasion is a perfect basis for malicious manipulations with the popup ads. And A-pigeon-wmca1.click advertisements is just one of hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Here is a short info for the A-pigeon-wmca1.click site
Site A-pigeon-wmca1.click
Hosting AS20473 The Constant Company, LLC
United States, New York City
Infection Type Adware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address 8.9.11.31
Symptoms Annoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behavior A, Businesspayments, Gomusic
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the A-pigeon-wmca1.click virus?

There are a plenty of ways of becoming infected by the adware that lead to the A-pigeon-wmca1.click popups storm. A lion’s part of this virus instances is after the freeware or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Free software may likewise be downloaded from the main web page, and the adware is supplied as a legal bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A lot of users often work with the uncertain programs from untrusted providers: abandonware, a wide range of apps that are free, and even hacked programs. All of these sorts of applications are unsafe, since it is very simple to include a A-pigeon-wmca1.click malware under the guise of part of the license hacking script, or as a part of the self-made algoritm within the Windows optimization tool.

A-pigeon-wmca1.click popup virus can also be concealed in the promotion somewhere on the strange site. Such websites are usually full of bright and blinking advertisements, and their proprietors generally permit any promotions to be placed on their web page. Thus, clicking such banners is a shot in the dark: only the ad contractor knows what will occur when you click this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you can likewise receive something far more dangerous, like ransomware or coin miner; the big 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 unwanted applications, like A-pigeon-wmca1.click pop-up virus can cause a variety of different troubles on your PC. Distracting is not the single effect – pop-up notifications may present you the advertisements, where you are offered to get one more strange application, or “a amazing security tool”. Scareware is usually spread under the last slogun. Potentially unwanted applications, in turn, may 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 PUPs and fake antiviruses, popup-related ads are also exploited as a spreading way by different trojan viruses, for instance – coin miners. The consequences of actions of such malware is 100% unwanted, and can cost you several hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not tapping these banners, they may be clicked by someone who also makes use of your PC – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the situation can become much more serious, and it will be much harder to solve it without information loss. It is recommended to remove the viruses with anti-malware programs as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of A-pigeon-wmca1.click pop-up advertisements?

The guide of A-pigeon-wmca1.click adware elimination consists of 2 parts. Initially, we need to eliminate the malware, and afterwards correct the results of its activity. The removal process is quite simple, due to the fact that it can be executed even with using Microsoft Defender – security software that is present on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. Nevertheless, due to its significant resources consumption, along with some failures that may be pivotal for some types of users, Defender is frequently disabled by the users, so its use is most likely impossible. Furthermore, different trojan viruses are able to turn off the embedded antivirus. It is much better to use the separated program that will not have such vulnerabilities.

I’d advise you to utilize Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven anti-malware device that will certainly wipe out the viruses from your computer and also create an impenetrable shield with a Proactive protection feature. However, let’s take care of A-pigeon-wmca1.click adware first.

Removing A-pigeon-wmca1.click 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 A-pigeon-wmca1.click 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 be connected the accurate DNS while connecting to the website you want. Create a text file named “hosts” on your desktop, then 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 problem that makes the things a lot more difficult to restore, particularly without the anti-malware program. The majority of adware versions that are utilized to show you the A-pigeon-wmca1.click pop-up promotions are changing the deep browser settings, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you attempt to change your browser settings after your PC was infected by pop-up-related malware, your browser will crash soon. In some cases, you will see no crash, but large lag spike after pressing the “settings” key. Browser will stop responding for ~ 30 secs, and after that it will be back to the normal, until you attempt to open settings again.

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 A-pigeon-wmca1.click Pop-ups?

Name: A-pigeon-wmca1.click

Description: A-pigeon-wmca1.click - 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 A-pigeon-wmca1.click push notifications?” or “why do A-pigeon-wmca1.click pop-ups keep appearing on Chrome even after AdBlock installation?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with A-pigeon-wmca1.click 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 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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