How to remove Prizepagoda pop-ups? — Fix Guide

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Prizepagoda pop-up notices can show up unexpectedly, covering the subject of the website you visited or opening your web browser when you do not want it to be opened.

Clicking the Prizepagoda advertisement can trigger the injection of other malware or unwanted programs. In this article, you will see the guide of Prizepagoda popups clearing in various methods, and also inspecting your personal computer for additional viruses existence.

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What are Prizepagoda pop-ups?

Prizepagoda popups are a consequence of adware action. Adware is a sort of malware that shows you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click advertisements, which creates a substantial volume of earnings for adware representatives. These advertisements might consist of explicit composition, or have a link to malevolent content/website, considering that adware maintainers have no purpose to check the goodness of the material they are going to reveal – their solitary target is cash.

Prizepagoda push notification

Prizepagoda push notification.

Pop-up marketing itself is a good, low-cost and extremely effective advertising tool1. It allows the vendor to link the customers’ attention to their site, as well as the customers to receive the dynamic updates on the goods they want to buy. When the consumer will receive a pop-up notification that the TV set he wishes to buy is available at the online store he/she visited previously with a 15% discount, one will definitely use this possibility and purchase it. Taking into consideration the exceptionally low price for the popups and their targeting, such an advertising instrument is a favorite thing amongst the advertising teams of huge internet stores.

However, such a successful plan could not be missed by virus creators. Potential to show the popup ads by force to the targets of malware invasion is a great basis for evil-minded tricks with the popup ads. And Prizepagoda.com ads is one of hundreds that are “employed” in this system.

Here is a short details for the Prizepagoda site
SitePrizepagoda.com
HostingAS14618 Amazon.com, Inc.
United States, Ashburn
Infection TypeAdware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address34.192.109.170
SymptomsAnnoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behaviorMycomputerads, Rewardusacenter, Trexvideo
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Prizepagoda virus?

There are a plenty of ways of getting infected by the adware that lead to the Prizepagoda popups tornado. A lion’s part of this virus incidents is after the free software or cracked programs, that are distributed on the peering networks. Free software may likewise be downloaded from the main web page, and the adware is delivered as a legit bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A plenty of people frequently make use of the dubious programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, a wide range of tools that are free of cost, or perhaps hacked programs. All of these kinds of programs are risky, because it is extremely easy to build in a Prizepagoda 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.

Prizepagoda popup malware may also be concealed in the ad somewhere on the strange web page. Such websites are typically full of bright and blinking ads, and their proprietors generally accept any kind of promotions to be placed on their page. Therefore, clicking such banners is a shot in the dark: only the advertisement contractor knows what will occur when you press this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or undesirable programs, you may additionally receive something much more risky, like ransomware or coin miner; the large share of coin miners circulation is exactly after the malicious ads.

People dislike popups

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

Potentially undesirable applications, like Prizepagoda popup virus can cause a wide range of problems on your personal computer. Distracting is not the only problem – pop-up notifications can display you the banners, where you are offered to download one more unknown application, or “a amazing security tool”. Scareware is often distributed with the use of the last slogun. Potentially undesirable applications, in turn, may have spyware functions. And it is very hard to distinguish the unwanted app from a good one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the PUPs and fake antiviruses, popup-related advertisements are also used as a distribution method by various trojan viruses, for example – coin miners. The consequences of actions of such viruses is 100% unpleasant, and can cost you hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not clicking these ads, they may be clicked by someone who also makes use of your computer – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the situation can 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 applications as soon as possible.

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

The tutorial of Prizepagoda adware removal contains 2 sections. First, we need to exterminate the malware, and after that deal with the results of its activity. The elimination task is pretty simple, because it can be executed even with making use of Microsoft Defender – security software that is present on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. Nonetheless, due to its large resources usage, along with some failures that may be serious for some kinds of users, Defender is frequently turned off by the users, so its utilization is probably impossible. What’s more, a wide range of trojan viruses are capable to disable the embedded antivirus. It is better to make use of the separated program that will not have such exposures.

I would certainly recommend you to utilize Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven antivirus tool that will definitely erase the viruses from your PC and also make an invulnerable shield with a Proactive protection function. But let’s deal with Prizepagoda adware initially.

Removing Prizepagoda 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 Prizepagoda 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 browser will definitely connect the proper DNS while connecting to the site you want. Make a text file named “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.

Nonetheless, there is one trouble that makes the things much harder to restore, specifically without the anti-malware software. A lot of adware variations that are used to show you the Prizepagoda pop-up promotions are adjusting the deep browser settings, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you try to fix your browser settings after your PC was infected by pop-up-related malware, your browser will crash quickly. Sometimes, you will see no crash, however, huge lag spike after pushing 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 Prizepagoda Pop-ups?

Name: Prizepagoda

Description: Prizepagoda - 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 Prizepagoda.com push notifications?” or “why do Prizepagoda.com pop-ups keep appearing on Chrome even after AdBlock installation?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with Prizepagoda 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 ads on Wikipedia.
  2. GridinSoft Anti-Malware review and also 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.

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