Clicking on the Dotchaudou ad may lead to the injection of various malware or unwanted programs. In this article, you will see the manual of Dotchaudou popups clearing in a couple of manners, and also inspecting your computer for extra malware existence.

What are Dotchaudou pop-ups?

Dotchaudou popups are a consequence of adware activity. Adware is a kind of malware that shows you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click ads, which produces a major volume of earnings for adware representatives. These promotions might contain sometimes shocking content, or have a link to harmful content/website, considering that adware maintainers have no reason to examine the goodness of the content they are going to show – their single target is money.

Dotchaudou push notification.

Pop-up promotions itself is an excellent, affordable and extremely productive marketing instrument¹. It makes it possible for the vendor to attach the customers’ attention to their site, as well as the buyers to receive the dynamic updates on the goods they wish to purchase. When the customer will receive a pop-up alert that the TV set he desires to purchase is offered at the online shop he/she saw earlier with a 15% discount, one will definitely use this opportunity and buy it. Taking into consideration the extremely small cost for the popups and their targeting, such an advertising method is a favourite thing amidst the advertising teams of big online stores.

However, such a rewarding scheme could not be missed by virus creators. Option to show the popup ads by force to the targets of malware attack is an ideal basis for evil-minded tricks with the popup promotions. And Dotchaudou.com promotions is among hundreds that are “employed” in this system.

Site	Dotchaudou.com
Hosting	AS9002 RETN Limited Netherlands, Amsterdam
Infection Type	Adware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address	139.45.197.151
Symptoms	Annoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behavior	News, Richsurvey, Yourdatasecurityservice
Fix Tool	GridinSoft Anti-MalwareTo remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Dotchaudou virus?

There are a huge amount of ways of becoming infected by the adware that cause the Dotchaudou 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 can also be downloaded from the official web page, and the adware is delivered as a legit bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A huge amount of individuals often use the dubious programs from untrusted providers: abandonware, different apps that are free, and even hacked programs. Every one of these types of software are risky, due to the fact that it is quite simple to integrate a Dotchaudou 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.

Dotchaudou popup virus can additionally be concealed in the advertisement somewhere on the strange site. Such websites are in most cases full of colorful and blinking advertisements, and their proprietors typically accept any type of promos to be posted on their web page. Hence, clicking on such banners is a risky thing: only the advertisement contractor knows what will occur when you click this ad. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you may likewise get something much more risky, like ransomware or coin miner; the substantial share of coin miners distribution is exactly after the malicious advertisements.

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

Potentially undesirable programs, like Dotchaudou popup virus can cause a lot of different problems on your computer. Distracting is not the single problem – pop-up notifications can show you the ads, where you are offered to download one more dubious application, or “a effective security tool”. Scareware is often spread under the last slogun. Potentially undesirable programs, in turn, may have spyware functionality. And it is very hard to distinguish the unwanted app from a good one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the potentially unwanted programs and fake antiviruses, popup-related banners are also chosen as a spreading way by various trojan viruses, for example – coin miners. The consequences of actions of such viruses is 100% unwanted, and can cost you several hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not interacting with these advertisements, they may be clicked by someone who also makes use of your PC – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the things can become much more serious, and it will be much harder to solve 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 Dotchaudou pop-up advertisements?

The tutorial of Dotchaudou adware clearing contains 2 parts. First, we need to eliminate the malware, and after that deal with the consequences of its activity. The removal procedure is pretty easy, due to the fact that it can be executed even with using Microsoft Defender – security program that is present on all computers with Windows 8/10. Nevertheless, as a result of its huge resources usage, as well as some bugs that may be crucial for some kinds of individuals, Defender is frequently turned off by the users, so its utilization is probably impossible. What’s more, a variety of trojan viruses are able to switch off the embedded antivirus. It is far better to make use of the separated program that will not have such vulnerabilities.

I would certainly suggest you to utilize Gridinsoft Anti-Malware² – a well-proven security device that will certainly erase the malware from your computer and also create an invulnerable cover with a Proactive protection function. But let’s take care of Dotchaudou adware initially.

Download GridinSoft Anti-Malware

Removing Dotchaudou 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 Dotchaudou 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 make sure that your browser will connect the accurate DNS while connecting to the site you need. Make a text file named “hosts” on your computer’s 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 problem that makes the things a lot more difficult to fix, specifically without the anti-malware software. A lot of adware variants that are utilized to show you the Dotchaudou pop-up promotions are altering the deep browser configurations, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you try to change your browser settings after your computer was infected by pop-up-related malware, your browser will certainly crash quickly. In certain cases, you will see no crash, however, large lag spike after pressing the “settings” key. Browser will stop reacting for ~ 30 seconds, and after that it will be back to the typical, up 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.

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 overview and the reasons why I recommend it for malware removal.
3. Official Microsoft guide for hosts file reset.