PUAAdvertising:Win32/PriceGongAds — PriceGongAds Adware Removal Guide

If you spectate the notification of PUAAdvertising:Win32/PriceGongAds detection, it seems that your PC has a problem. All malicious programs are dangerous, with no deviations. PriceGongAds fills your PC with various ads, opens your browser without your intention and makes the system prone to other malware injection.

What does the notification with PUAAdvertising:Win32/PriceGongAds detection mean?

The PUAAdvertising:Win32/PriceGongAds detection you can see in the lower right side is displayed to you by Microsoft Defender. That anti-malware program is quite OK at scanning, but prone to be basically unreliable. It is prone to malware attacks, it has a glitchy interface and problematic malware clearing capabilities. Therefore, the pop-up which says concerning the PriceGongAds is simply a notification that Defender has actually spotted it. To remove it, you will likely need to use a separate anti-malware program.

PUAAdvertising:Win32/PriceGongAds found

Microsoft Defender: “PUAAdvertising:Win32/PriceGongAds”

The exact PUAAdvertising:Win32/PriceGongAds malware is a really unpleasant thing. This malware demonstrates you an unprecedented amount of commercials. Have you ever saw the doorway web pages? They are filled up only with banners – blinking, poorly designed and with strange information. Adware does the same thing to all websites you explore. That malware brings revenue to its creators in a very tricky way. You look at the banners – they receive profit. Furthermore, these banners often have deceitful and sometimes shocking content. Penis enlargement, pornography sites ads, Microsoft virus alertsall these things are usual for adware.

Adware Summary:

Name PriceGongAds Adware
Detection PUAAdvertising:Win32/PriceGongAds
Damage Display advertisements in the browser, which are not related to the sites the affected users are visiting.
Fix Tool See If Your System Has Been Affected by PriceGongAds adware

Is PUAAdvertising:Win32/PriceGongAds dangerous?

How did I get this virus?

It is difficult to line the origins of malware on your computer. Nowadays, things are mixed, and distribution ways utilized by adware 5 years ago may be utilized by spyware these days. But if we abstract from the exact spreading tactic and will think about why it works, the explanation will be very simple – low level of cybersecurity understanding. People press on ads on weird websites, click the pop-ups they receive in their browsers, call the “Microsoft tech support” assuming that the odd banner that states about malware is true. It is very important to understand what is legit – to prevent misunderstandings when attempting to figure out a virus.

Microsoft Tech Support Scam

Microsoft Tech Support Scam

Nowadays, there are two of the most extensive ways of malware distribution – lure e-mails and also injection into a hacked program. While the first one is not so easy to avoid – you need to know a lot to recognize a fake – the 2nd one is easy to handle: just do not utilize cracked programs. Torrent-trackers and other providers of “totally free” applications (which are, in fact, paid, but with a disabled license checking) are really a giveaway point of malware. And PUAAdvertising:Win32/PriceGongAds is just amongst them.

How to remove the PUAAdvertising:Win32/PriceGongAds from my PC?

Reset Browser settings after the adware attack

Adware makes a lot to keep annoying you even after being removed from your computer. It distorts the browser configurations, so it will not work correctly. Until you reset it, of course. Each browser has its own way to restore the default settings. Here are the guides for the most popular ones:

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 be connected the proper DNS while connecting to the web page you need. Make a text file named “hosts” on your desktop, after that open it and fill it with the following content2:


# 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.

References

  1. Official Microsoft guide for hosts file reset.

About the author

Wilbur Woodham

Technical writer covering malware detections, unwanted programs, and browser-based threats. Wilbur turns research notes into step-by-step guides that Windows users can follow safely.

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