Remove Pointcaptchaspot.com Pop-up Virus — How to Remove?

Written by Wilbur Woodham

Unwanted Pointcaptchaspot.com pop-up notices may show up out of the blue, covering the post of the website you visited or opening your web browser when you don’t want it to be opened. Clicking on the Pointcaptchaspot.com pop-up advertisement can cause the injection of other malware or unwanted programs. In this guide, you will see the manual of Pointcaptchaspot.com popups clearing in several ways, and also examining your personal computer for other malware existence.

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What are Pointcaptchaspot.com pop-ups?

Pointcaptchaspot.com popups are an effect of adware action. Adware is a kind of malware that presents you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click advertisements, which generates a large volume of income for adware suppliers. These promotions may include explicit material, or have a web link to harmful content/website, considering that adware maintainers have no reason to check the goodness of the web content they are going to show – their solitary target is money.

Pointcaptchaspot.com push notification

Pointcaptchaspot.com push notification.

Pop-up advertising itself is a very good, low-cost and very successful marketing solution1 It makes it possible for the seller to attach the customers’ attention to their site, as well as the customers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they want to buy. When the person will get a pop-up alert that the TV set he likes to buy is provided at the online shop he/she checked out previously with a 15% discount, one will surely use this chance and buy it. Considering the very low price for the popups and their targeting, such an advertising instrument is a favorite thing amidst the advertising departments of big internet retailers.

Nonetheless, such a successful scheme could not be missed by malware creators. Potential to demonstrate the popup ads forcibly to the people of malware attack is an excellent basis for malicious manipulations with the popup promotions. And Pointcaptchaspot.com promotions is among hundreds that are “employed” in this system.

Here is a short details for the Pointcaptchaspot.com
SitePointcaptchaspot.com
HostingAS209813 Fast Content Delivery LTD
Netherlands, Haarlem
Infection TypeAdware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address5.8.34.205
SymptomsAnnoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behaviorFreepdfconvertersearch.com, Astercom.top, Giftboxsweepstakes.com
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Pointcaptchaspot.com virus?

There are a huge amount of methods of getting infected by the adware that cause the Pointcaptchaspot.com popups tornado. A lion’s part of this virus cases is after the freeware or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Free software can additionally be downloaded from the official site, and the adware is supplied as a legal bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A huge amount of individuals often use the dubious programs from untrusted providers: abandonware, various utilities that are free, or perhaps hacked programs. Every one of these kinds of programs are dangerous, since it is extremely easy to build in a Pointcaptchaspot.com malware under the cover of part of the license hacking script, or as a component of the self-made algoritm inside of the Windows optimization tool.

Pointcaptchaspot.com popup malware may additionally be concealed in the promotion somewhere on the odd web page. Such websites are typically full of colorful and blinking advertisements, and their owners often permit any kind of promos to be published on their page. Thus, clicking such banners is a shot in the dark: only the advertisement contractor knows what will happen when you press this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or undesirable programs, you may likewise receive something far more damaging, like ransomware or coin miner; the substantial 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

How can I get rid of Pointcaptchaspot.com pop-up advertisements?

The manual of Pointcaptchaspot.com adware clearing consists of 2 sections. Initially, we need to deal with the malware, and then fix the effects of its activity. The elimination procedure is very easy, because it can be performed even with using Microsoft Defender – security software that is present on all computers with Windows 8/10. Nevertheless, because of its significant resources usage, as well as some problems that can be critical for some groups of users, Defender is frequently disabled by the users, so its usage is likely impossible. What’s more, various trojan viruses can 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 utilize Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven anti-malware tool that will definitely remove the malware from your system and also create an invulnerable shield with a Proactive protection feature. However, let’s deal with Pointcaptchaspot.com adware initially.

Removing Pointcaptchaspot.com 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 Pointcaptchaspot.com 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 right DNS while connecting to the site you need. Make a text file titled “hosts” on your pc’s desktop, then open it and fill it with the following lines3:

# 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.

Nevertheless, there is one problem that makes the things much harder to restore, particularly without the anti-malware program. A lot of adware variants that are used to show you the Pointcaptchaspot.com pop-up promotions are adjusting 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 crash soon. In certain cases, you will see no crash, however, significant lag spike after pressing the “settings” key. Browser will stop reacting for ~ 30 secs, and then it will be back to the typical, up until you try 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.

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 Pointcaptchaspot.com Pop-ups?

Name: Pointcaptchaspot.com

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