Clicking the Watchvideo.pro advertisement can cause the injection of various malware or unwanted programs. In this post, you will see the manual of Watchvideo.pro popups removal in a couple of methods, as well as examining your PC for other malware presence.

What are Watchvideo.pro pop-ups?

Watchvideo.pro popups are a result of adware presence. Adware is a type of malware that demonstrates to you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click advertisements, which creates a large volume of income for adware distributors. These promotions might consist of explicit content, or have a link to harmful content/website, because adware maintainers have no reason to examine the goodness of the content they are going to reveal – their solitary target is cash.

Watchvideo.pro push notification.

Pop-up marketing itself is a good, low-cost and very productive advertising instrument¹. It enables the vendor to attach the customers’ attention to their website, and the customers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they want to buy. When the person will get a pop-up notification that the TV set he desires to purchase is provided at the online store he/she saw previously with a 15% discount, one will undoubtedly use this possibility and buy it. Taking into consideration the exceptionally small cost for the popups and their targeting, such a promotion and marketing tool is a favourite thing amidst the marketing departments of huge online stores.

Nevertheless, such a rewarding strategy could not be missed by virus developers. Option to show the popup advertisements forcibly to the targets of malware invasion is a great basis for evil-minded adjustments with the popup ads. And Watchvideo.pro ads is just one of hundreds that are “employed” in this system.

Site	Watchvideo.pro
Hosting	AS21100 ITL LLC Netherlands, Meppel
Infection Type	Adware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address	185.14.28.253
Symptoms	Annoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behavior	Aytonus, Zjrtq, News
Fix Tool	GridinSoft Anti-MalwareTo remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Watchvideo.pro virus?

There are a huge amount of methods of becoming infected by the adware that result in the Watchvideo.pro popups storm. A lion’s part of this virus incidents is after the freeware or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Free software can also be downloaded from the main web page, and the adware is offered as a legitimate bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A huge amount of individuals oftentimes make use of the uncertain programs from untrusted providers: abandonware, a wide range of apps that are free of cost, or perhaps hacked programs. All of these sorts of software are risky, since it is very simple to build in a Watchvideo.pro malware under the guise of part of the license hacking script, or as a component of the self-made algoritm within the Windows optimization tool.

Watchvideo.pro popup malware can also be concealed in the promotion somewhere on the odd web page. Such web pages are in most cases packed with bright and blinking ads, and their proprietors often accept any type of promotions to be placed on their web page. Thus, clicking on such banners is a risky thing: only the advertisement contractor knows what will occur when you press this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or undesirable programs, you can also get something a lot more dangerous, like ransomware or coin miner; the big share of coin miners distribution is exactly after the malicious promotions.

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

Potentially undesirable applications, like Watchvideo.pro popup virus can initiate a variety of different problems on your computer. Distracting is not the single problem – pop-ups can show you the advertisements, where you are offered to download one more strange program, or “a effective security tool”. Scareware is usually distributed with the last slogun. Potentially undesirable programs, in turn, may have spyware functionality. And it is very hard to distinguish the undesirable app from a legit one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the PUPs and dubious antiviruses, popup-related promotions are also exploited as a distribution way by different trojan viruses, for example – coin miners. The consequences of activity of such malware is 100% unpleasant, and can cost you several hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not clicking these advertisements, they can be clicked by someone who also makes use of your PC – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the things may become much more serious, and it will be much harder to deal with it without information loss. It is recommended to get rid of the viruses with anti-malware applications as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Watchvideo.pro pop-up advertisements?

The guide of Watchvideo.pro adware elimination consists of 2 sections. Initially, we need to get rid of the malware, and afterwards correct the results of its action. The elimination process is really simple, since it may be performed even with using Microsoft Defender – security software that is available on all computers with Windows 8/10. Nevertheless, due to its huge resources utilization, as well as some bugs that can be pivotal for some categories of individuals, Defender is oftentimes disabled by the users, so its use is likely impossible. Moreover, a variety of trojan viruses are capable to shut off the embedded antivirus. It is better to use the separated program that will not have such weakness.

I would certainly suggest you to utilize Gridinsoft Anti-Malware² – a well-proven antivirus device that will surely remove the viruses from your personal computer and also create an invulnerable cover with a Proactive protection feature. However, let’s take care of Watchvideo.pro adware initially.

Download GridinSoft Anti-Malware

Removing Watchvideo.pro 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.
• 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.
• When the scan is over, you may choose the action for each detected virus. For all files of Watchvideo.pro malware the default option is “Delete”. Press “Apply” to finish the malware removal.

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

1. Open “Settings and more” tab in upper right corner, then find here “Settings” button. In the appeared menu, choose “Reset settings” option :
2. After picking the Reset Settings option, you will see the following menu, stating about the settings which will be reverted to original :

1. Open Menu tab (three strips in upper right corner) and click the “Help” button. In the appeared menu choose “troubleshooting information” :
2. In the next screen, find the “Refresh Firefox” option :

After choosing this option, you will see the next message :

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 :

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 connect the right DNS while connecting to the web page you need. Create a text file titled “hosts” on your computer’s desktop, after that 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.

However, there is one trouble that makes the things much harder to fix, specifically without the anti-malware program. The majority of adware versions that are utilized to show you the Watchvideo.pro pop-up advertisements are modifying the deep browser settings, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you try to fix your browser settings after your machine was penetrated by pop-up-related malware, your browser will certainly crash soon. Sometimes, you will see no crash, however, significant lag spike after pushing the “settings” key. Browser will stop reacting for ~ 30 seconds, and afterwards it will be back to the normal, till you attempt 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.

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.

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.

References

1. More about pop-up advertisements on Wikipedia.
2. GridinSoft Anti-Malware review and the reasons why I advise it for malware elimination.
3. Official Microsoft guide for hosts file reset.