Remove Pecot.live Pop-up Virus — How to Remove?

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Pecot.live pop-up notices can show up unexpectedly, covering the content of the site you explored or opening your browser when you don’t need it to be opened.

Clicking the Pecot.live ad can lead to the injection of other malware or unwanted programs. In this post, you will see the manual of Pecot.live popups removal in multiple methods, as well as checking your personal computer for extra malware existence.

GridinSoft Anti-Malware Review
It is better to prevent, than repair and repent!
Removing Pecot.live 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.
Gridinsoft Anti-Malware 6-day trial available.
EULA | Privacy Policy | 10% Off Coupon
Subscribe to our Telegram channel to be the first to know about news and our exclusive materials on information security.

What are Pecot.live pop-ups?

Pecot.live popups are a consequence of adware presence. Adware is a kind of malware that demonstrates to you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click promotions, which creates a major volume of profit for adware representatives. These promotions may contain explicit content, or have a link to malevolent content/website, since adware maintainers have no purpose to examine the goodness of the content they are going to show – their solitary target is cash.

Pecot.live push notification

Pecot.live push notification.

Pop-up promotions itself is a very good, low-cost and also really productive marketing instrument1. It permits the vendor to link the buyers’ interest to their website, as well as the buyers to receive the dynamic updates on the goods they wish to purchase. When the consumer will receive a pop-up alert that the TV set he likes to buy is offered at the online store he/she saw previously with a 15% price cut, one will certainly use this opportunity and get it. Considering the incredibly small cost for the popups and their targeting, such an advertising and marketing instrument is a favourite thing among the marketing departments of huge online sellers.

Nonetheless, such a successful strategy could not be missed by virus developers. Option to show the popup advertisements forcibly to the targets of malware attack is a great basis for malevolent tricks with the popup ads. And Pecot.live advertisements is one of hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Here is a summary for the Pecot.live site
SitePecot.live
HostingAS14061 DigitalOcean, LLC
United States, North Bergen
Infection TypeAdware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address157.230.4.182
SymptomsAnnoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behaviorPefog, News, News
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Pecot.live virus?

There are a plenty of ways of becoming contaminated by the adware that result in the Pecot.live popups tornado. A lion’s part of this computer virus instances is after the free software or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Free software can likewise be downloaded from the official website, and the adware is presented as a legit bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A plenty of users often make use of the dubious programs from untrusted providers: abandonware, various utilities that are free of cost, or even hacked programs. All of these types of applications are unsafe, since it is very simple to include a Pecot.live 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.

Pecot.live popup malware can additionally be hidden in the advertisement somewhere on the odd web page. Such websites are in most cases loaded with intense and blinking ads, and their owners usually approve any kind of promotions to be posted on their web page. Therefore, clicking on such banners is a shot in the dark: only the advertisement provider knows what will happen when you click this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or undesirable programs, you may also get something a lot more unsafe, like ransomware or coin miner; the large 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 undesirable applications, like Pecot.live popup virus may cause a wide range of different problems on your personal computer. Distracting is not the only effect – pop-ups may display you the ads, where you are offered to get one more unknown program, or “a perfect anti-malware tool”. Scareware is usually spread with the last motto. Potentially undesirable applications, in turn, may have spyware functions. And it is very hard to distinguish the undesirable app from a normal one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the PUPs and dubious antiviruses, popup-related ads are also chosen as a spreading method by different trojan viruses, for instance – coin miners. The consequences of activity of such malware is 100% unpleasant, and can cost you hundreds or even thousands of dollars. And even if you are not tapping these banners, they can be clicked by whoever who also makes use of your personal computer – 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 remove the viruses with anti-malware programs as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Pecot.live pop-up advertisements?

The tutorial of Pecot.live adware removal consists of 2 parts. Initially, we need to eliminate the malware, and afterwards correct the effects of its activity. The elimination process is very easy, due to the fact that it can be performed even with using Microsoft Defender – security program that is available on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. Nonetheless, due to its substantial resources usage, as well as some failures that may be critical for some groups of users, Defender is oftentimes disabled by the users, so its utilization is likely impossible. Additionally, a variety of trojan viruses can turn off the embedded antivirus. It is far better to make use of the separated program that will not have such vulnerabilities.

I would certainly suggest you to use Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven security tool that will surely eliminate the viruses from your system and make an impenetrable shield with a Proactive protection feature. However, let’s manage Pecot.live adware first.

Removing Pecot.live 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 Pecot.live 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 make sure that your web browser will definitely connect the right DNS while connecting to the web page you want. Create a text file named “hosts” on your computer’s 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.

Nonetheless, there is one issue that makes things much harder to fix, especially without the anti-malware software. The majority of adware versions that are utilized to show you the Pecot.live pop-up promotions are altering the deep browser setups, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you attempt to fix your browser settings after your computer was penetrated by pop-up-related malware, your browser will certainly crash soon. In certain cases, you will see no crash, but huge lag spike after pushing the “settings” key. Browser will stop reacting for ~ 30 seconds, and afterwards it will be back to the typical, till you try 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 Pecot.live Pop-ups?

Name: Pecot.live

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

Sending
User Review
3.25 (4 votes)
Comments Rating 0 (0 reviews)

References

  1. More about pop-up ads on Wikipedia.
  2. GridinSoft Anti-Malware review and the reasons why I advise 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.

Leave a Reply

Sending