How to remove Dollarsurvey pop-ups? — Fix Guide

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Dollarsurvey pop-up alerts can appear out of the blue, covering the content of the site you visited or opening your browser when you don’t desire it to be opened.

Clicking the Dollarsurvey promotion may trigger the injection of different malware or unwanted programs. In this guide, you will see the manual of Dollarsurvey popups clearing in multiple manners, as well as checking your personal computer for additional viruses presence.

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What are Dollarsurvey pop-ups?

Quick reference

The popularity and recognition of this approach of using pop-ups and this is the right decision if the need arises in the customer who has already purchased a TV set, and have a way to sell that TV set at the location which is a bit out of their standard reach.

One does not expect to experience the benefits of such an innovative marketing tool until it has been available for sale for a long time. However, its appeal is that it can lead the owner of a shopping list to purchase an appliance in a store, then get notified via pop-up ads that it fits the current model and offers them the lowest possible price in an affordable format. After a few months, the user begins to realise that this tool offers very good value.

Dollarsurvey popups are a result of adware activity. Adware is a kind of malware that demonstrates to you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click promotions, which produces a massive volume of earnings for adware suppliers. These advertisements might have sometimes shocking content, or have a link to malevolent content/website, considering that adware maintainers have no reason to check the goodness of the web content they are going to reveal – their single target is cash.

Dollarsurvey push notification

Dollarsurvey push notification.

Pop-up advertising itself is an excellent, low-priced and extremely efficient marketing solution1. It makes it possible for the vendor to attach the buyers’ attention to their website, and the buyers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they wish to purchase. When the consumer will receive a pop-up notification that the TV set he wishes to purchase is offered at the online store he/she checked out previously with a 15% price cut, one will definitely use this possibility and get it. Considering the incredibly low price for the popups and their targeting, such a promotion and marketing tool is a much-loved thing among the advertising departments of big online sellers.

However, such a profitable system could not be missed by malware creators. Ability to show the popup advertisements forcibly to the people of malware attack is an ideal basis for malevolent tricks with the popup advertisements. And Dollarsurvey.org promotions is just one of hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Here is a short summary for the Dollarsurvey
SiteDollarsurvey.org
HostingAS13335 Cloudflare, Inc.
United States, San Francisco
Infection TypeAdware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address104.26.9.192
SymptomsAnnoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behaviorDreamnotforblack, Udsignation, Liveads
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Dollarsurvey virus?

There are a huge amount of ways of getting infected by the adware that create the Dollarsurvey popups storm. 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 additionally be downloaded from the official site, and the adware is offered as a legitimate bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A number of individuals oftentimes work with the unreliable programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, various utilities that are free of cost, or even hacked programs. All of these types of applications are unsafe, because it is quite easy to build in a Dollarsurvey malware under the guise of part of the license hacking script, or as a part of the self-made algoritm within the Windows optimization tool.

Dollarsurvey popup malware can additionally be hidden in the advertisement somewhere on the unusual website. Such websites are usually full of colorful and blinking advertisements, and their owners generally permit any kind of promotions to be placed on their page. For this reason, clicking such banners is a shot in the dark: only the ad contractor knows what will occur when you click this ad. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you may also receive something much more unsafe, like ransomware or coin miner; the big 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 Dollarsurvey popup virus may cause a variety of troubles on your personal computer. Distracting is not the single problem – pop-ups can display you the promotions, where you are offered to download another dubious program, or “a perfect anti-malware tool”. Scareware is usually distributed with the use of the last slogun. Potentially unwanted programs, in turn, may have spyware functions. And it is pretty hard to distinguish the undesirable app from a good one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the potentially unwanted programs and fake antiviruses, popup-related promotions are also used as a spreading way by various trojan viruses, for instance – coin miners. The consequences of actions of such malware is 100% unpleasant, and can cost you hundreds or even thousands of dollars. And even if you are not clicking these ads, they may be clicked by whoever 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 solve it without data and money loss. It is recommended to remove the viruses with anti-malware programs as soon as possible.

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

The tutorial of Dollarsurvey adware elimination includes 2 parts. Initially, we need to deal with the malware, and then take care of the consequences of its activity. The elimination process is pretty simple, due to the fact that it may be done even with using Microsoft Defender – security program that is available on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. Nonetheless, due to its substantial resources usage, as well as some problems that can be critical for some groups of individuals, Defender is oftentimes disabled by the users, so its use is likely impossible. In addition, various trojan viruses are capable to shut off the embedded antivirus. It is much better to make use of 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 exterminate the viruses from your PC and also create an invulnerable shield with a Proactive protection function. However, let’s deal with Dollarsurvey adware initially.

Removing Dollarsurvey 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 Dollarsurvey 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 connect the correct DNS while connecting to the website you need. Make a text file named “hosts” on your desktop, after that open it and fill it with the following content3:

# 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 things much harder to fix, especially without the anti-malware software. Most of adware variants that are utilized to show you the Dollarsurvey pop-up advertisements are altering the deep browser configurations, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you attempt to fix your browser settings after your computer was infected by pop-up-related malware, your browser will collapse soon. In certain cases, you will see no crash, but huge lag spike after pressing the “settings” key. Browser will stop responding for ~ 30 seconds, and after that it will be back to the normal, until you attempt to open settings once more.

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 Dollarsurvey Pop-ups?

Name: Dollarsurvey

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