Did you just get interrupted by a pop-up ad from dbd.cooldeas.com? You are not alone. I also get the dbd.cooldeas.com pop-ups while browsing. Do the pop-ups also circumvent the pop-up blocker in Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer or Safari. Then read on…

Here’s a screenshot of the dbd.cooldeas.com pop-up ad when it showed up on my system:

If you also see this on your computer, you most likely have some adware installed on your machine that pops up the dbd.cooldeas.com ads. So don’t blame the people that owns the web site you were at, the ads are most likely not coming from that site, but from the adware that’s running on your computer. I’ll do my best to help you remove the dbd.cooldeas.com pop up in this blog post.

If you have been following this blog already know this, but if you are new: Not long ago I dedicated some of my lab machines and intentionally installed a few adware programs on them. Since then I’ve been following the actions on these computers to see what kinds of advertisements that are displayed. I’m also looking on other interesting things such as if the adware auto-updates, or if it downloads and installs additional unwanted software on the computers. I first found the dbd.cooldeas.com pop-up on one of these lab computers.

dbd.cooldeas.com was created on 2014-11-23. dbd.cooldeas.com resolves to 208.43.241.245.

So, how do you remove the dbd.cooldeas.com pop-up ads? On the machine where I got the dbd.cooldeas.com ads I had TinyWallet, BlockAndSurf and BrowserWarden installed. I removed them with FreeFixer and that stopped the dbd.cooldeas.com pop-ups and all the other ads I was getting in Firefox.

BlockAndSurf was the adware that caused the pop-ups in my case.

The issue with this type of pop-up is that it can be launched by many variants of adware, not just the adware on my computer. This makes it impossible to say exactly what you need to remove to stop the pop-ups.

Anyway, here’s my suggestion for the dbd.cooldeas.com ads removal:

1. What software do you have installed if you look in the Add/Remove programs dialog in the Windows Control Panel? Something that you don’t remember installing yourself or that was recently installed?
2. You can also review the add-ons that you have in your browser. Same thing here, do you see something that you don’t remember installing?
3. If that didn’t solve the problem, you can give FreeFixer a try. FreeFixer is built to assist users when manually tracking down adware and other types of unwanted software. It is a freeware utility that I’ve been working since 2006 and it scans your computer at lots of locations where unwanted software is known to hook into your machine. If you would like to get additional details about a file in FreeFixer’s scan result, you can just click the More Info link for that file and a web page with a VirusTotal report will open up, which can be very useful to determine if the file is safe or malware:

   

Here’s a video tutorial showing FreeFixer in action removing the dbd.cooldeas.com pop-up ads:

Did this blog post help you to remove the dbd.cooldeas.com pop-up ads? Please let me know or how I can improve this blog post.

Thank you!

Does this sound like what you are seeing right now? You see pop-up ads from ale.coupthree.com while browsing sites that mostly don’t advertise in pop-up windows. The pop-ups manage to circumvent the built-in pop-up blockers in Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari or Opera. Maybe the ale.coupthree.com popups appear when clicking search results from the Google search engine? Or does the pop-ups appear even when you’re not browsing?

Here is a screenshot on the ale.coupthree.com pop-up from my computer:

In my case, the pop-up sometimes redirected to adcash.com, which then redirect me again to the actual advert, but in most cases the browser remained at ale.coupthree.com and showed various types of ads, mostly casino/gambling related.

If this sounds like what you are seeing on your system, you almost certainly have some adware installed on your system that pops up the ale.coupthree.com ads. Contacting the site owner would be a waste of time. The advertisements are not coming from them. I’ll try help you with the ale.coupthree.com removal in this blog post.

Those that have been visiting this blog already know this, but here we go: Some time ago I dedicated some of my lab computers and deliberately installed a few adware programs on them. Since then I have been following the actions on these machines to see what kinds of advertisements that are displayed. I’m also looking on other interesting things such as if the adware updates itself, or if it downloads and installs additional unwanted software on the computers. I first found the ale.coupthree.com pop-up on one of these lab systems.

ale.coupthree.com resolves to the 208.43.241.245 IP address. Here’s a bunch of other domains resolving that server according to YouGetSignal.com’s reverse IP:

• article.wn.com
• control.staticlyrics.com
• dvl.cooloideas.com
• enl.trepage.net
• gip.driverdiv.net
• gir.driveropti.net
• gys.mappingdo.net
• jxs.mappingjava.net
• jxw.javadrive.net
• nsl.mapticket.net
• vei.screedkeywaybrookite.com

So, how do you remove the ale.coupthree.com pop-up ads? On the machine where I got the ale.coupthree.com ads I had TinyWallet, BrowserWarden and BlockAndSurf installed. I removed them with FreeFixer and that stopped the ale.coupthree.com pop-ups and all the other ads I was getting in Mozilla Firefox.

BlockAndSurf was the adware that caused the pop-ups in my case. The pop-up was labelled “Ads by BlockAndSurf“.

What label did your pop-up ad have? Please share by posting a comment below.

The problem with pop-ups such as this one is that it can be popped up by many variants of adware. I think that adware such as SpeedCheck, CheckMeUp, SaferSurf and NewPlayer can also be responsible for the ale.coupthree.com popups. And there are probably other variants too. This makes it impossible to say exactly what you need to remove to stop the pop-ups.

To remove the ale.coupthree.com pop-up ads you need to review your system for adware or other types of unwanted software and uninstall it. Here’s my suggested removal procedure:

The first thing I would do to remove the ale.coupthree.com pop-ups is to examine the programs installed on the machine, by opening the “Uninstall programs” dialog. You can reach this dialog from the Windows Control Panel. If you are using one of the more recent versions of Windows you can just type in “uninstall” in the Control Panel’s search field to find that dialog:

Click on the “Uninstall a program” link and the Uninstall programs dialog will open up:

Do you see something dubious in there or something that you don’t remember installing? Tip: Sort on the “Installed On” column to see if something was installed approximately about the same time as you started getting the ale.coupthree.com pop-ups.

Then you can examine you browser add-ons. Adware often appear under the add-ons dialog in Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer or Safari. Is there anything that looks suspicious? Something that you don’t remember installing?

I think most users will be able to find and remove the adware with the steps outlined above, but in case that did not work you can try the FreeFixer removal tool to identify and remove the adware. FreeFixer is a freeware tool that I started develop about 8 years ago. Freefixer is a tool designed to manually track down and remove unwanted software. When you’ve identified the unwanted files you can simply tick a checkbox and click on the Fix button to remove the unwanted file.

FreeFixer’s removal feature is not locked like many other removal tools out there. It will not require you to purchase the program just when you are about to remove the unwanted files.

And if you’re having difficulties figuring out if a file is clean or adware in FreeFixer’s scan report, click on the More Info link for the file. That will open up a web page which contains more information about the file. On that web page, check out the VirusTotal report which can be quite useful:

Here’s a video tutorial which shows FreeFixer in action removing the adware that caused the ale.coupthree.com pop-up ads:

Are you a Mac or Linux user and get the ale.coupthree.com pop ups? What did you do to stop the pop-up in your browser? Please share in the comments below. Thanks!

Did this blog post help you to remove the ale.coupthree.com pop-up ads? Please let me know or how I can improve this blog post.

Thank you!