Remove Pigrod.host Pop-up Ads — How to Fix Gude

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Pigrod.host pop-up notices can appear unexpectedly, covering the subject of the page you checked or opening your browser when you don’t wish it to be opened.

Clicking on the Pigrod.host promotion can trigger the injection of various malware or unwanted programs. In this article, you will see the tutorial of Pigrod.host popups clearing in multiple manners, as well as examining your PC for other viruses existence.

GridinSoft Anti-Malware Review
It is better to prevent, than repair and repent!
Removing Pigrod.host 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 Pigrod.host pop-ups?

Pigrod.host popups are a result of adware presence. Adware is a sort of malware that presents you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click ads, which creates a massive amount of profit for adware representatives. These promotions might contain sometimes shocking content, or have a link to malicious content/website, considering that adware maintainers have no purpose to check the goodness of the web content they are going to reveal – their solitary target is money.

Pigrod.host push notification

Pigrod.host push notification.

Pop-up promotions itself is an excellent, cheap and also extremely efficient advertising instrument1. It makes it possible for the vendor to link the customers’ interest to their website, and the buyers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they want to purchase. When the person will receive a pop-up alert that the TV set he wishes to purchase is provided at the online store he/she visited previously with a 15% price cut, one will surely use this possibility and purchase it. Taking into consideration the incredibly low cost for the popups and their targeting, such a marketing method is a favourite thing amongst the advertising departments of large internet sellers.

However, such a rewarding scheme could not be missed by virus developers. Potential to show the popup advertisements forcibly to the people of malware invasion is an ideal basis for malevolent adjustments with the popup advertisements. And Pigrod.host ads is among hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Here is a info for the Pigrod.host site
Site Pigrod.host
Hosting AS12312 ecotel communication ag
Germany, Frankfurt am Main
Infection Type Adware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address 212.172.221.5
Symptoms Annoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behavior Mybetterdl, Threeshopping1, News
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Pigrod.host virus?

There are a number of ways of getting contaminated by the adware that cause the Pigrod.host popups tornado. A lion’s part of this malware cases is after the free software or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Freeware can also be downloaded from the main website, and the adware is presented as a legit bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A number of individuals often work with the unreliable programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, a wide range of utilities that are free of cost, or even hacked programs. All of these sorts of software are dangerous, due to the fact that it is extremely easy to build in a Pigrod.host malware under the guise of part of the license hacking script, or as a component of the self-made algoritm inside of the Windows optimization tool.

Pigrod.host popup malware may also be concealed in the ad somewhere on the odd website. Such web pages are usually loaded with bright and blinking advertisements, and their proprietors generally permit any promos to be placed on their page. Therefore, clicking such banners is a shot in the dark: only the ad contractor realizes what will happen when you click this ad. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you can likewise receive something far more risky, like ransomware or coin miner; the substantial share of coin miners circulation 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 programs, like Pigrod.host popup virus may initiate a lot of different problems on your PC. Distracting is not the single problem – pop-ups can show you the banners, where you are offered to get one more unknown program, or “a effective security tool”. Scareware is usually distributed with the last slogun. Potentially unwanted programs, in turn, may have spyware functions. And it is pretty hard to distinguish the unwanted app from a good one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the PUPs and dubious antiviruses, popup-related ads are also used as a distribution way by different trojan viruses, for instance – coin miners. The consequences of actions of such viruses is 100% unwanted, and can cost you hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not clicking these banners, they may be clicked by someone who also makes use of your computer – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the things can become much more serious, and it will be much harder to deal with it without data and money loss. It is recommended to wipe out the viruses with antivirus applications as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Pigrod.host pop-up advertisements?

The guide of Pigrod.host adware removal includes 2 sections. First, we need to remove the malware, and then correct the results of its activity. The elimination task is very simple, since it can be performed even with the use of Microsoft Defender – security software that is present on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. Nonetheless, because of its huge resources utilization, as well as some defects that may be serious for some groups of users, Defender is oftentimes turned off by the users, so its utilization is most likely impossible. In addition, a variety of trojan viruses are able to switch off the embedded antivirus. It is much better to use the separated program that will not have such exposures.

I’d suggest you to use Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven antivirus tool that will undoubtedly remove the malware from your PC and create an invulnerable cover with a Proactive protection function. However, let’s handle Pigrod.host adware initially.

Removing Pigrod.host 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 Pigrod.host 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 browser will definitely be connected the proper DNS while connecting to the site you need. Create a text file titled “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 things a lot more difficult to repair, particularly without the anti-malware program. A lot of adware variants that are utilized to show you the Pigrod.host pop-up advertisements are changing the deep browser setups, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you attempt to change your browser settings after your machine was penetrated by pop-up-related malware, your browser will certainly crash quickly. In some cases, you will see no crash, however, huge lag spike after pushing the “settings” key. Browser will stop reacting for ~ 30 seconds, and then it will be back to the typical, until you try 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 Pigrod.host Pop-ups?

Name: Pigrod.host

Description: Pigrod.host - 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 Pigrod.host push notifications?” or “why do Pigrod.host pop-ups keep appearing on Chrome even after AdBlock installation?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with Pigrod.host 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
3.83 (6 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 recommend 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.

Leave a Reply

Sending