PUP's from online studies - harmless or not?

Hello Fleks,

I see you have a PUP issue(s).  Did you delete the PUP's with Adware Cleaner after you ran the scan?  I don't know where you are located but did you know this study website is in Germany?

PUA. (Potentially Unwanted Application) or PUP (Potentially Unwanted Program)  These are very annoying at best in that they cause pop-us, redirect your browser home page, and other behavior that may slow down the computer and direct ads your way, but they are not actually doing anything bad like damaging files or stealing information. Often they are installed intentionally by you the user as browser add-ons for various tasks such as quick search tools.. but they also come with the result of added annoying pop-ups and ads. Other times they 'piggy back' with other software that you installed, or try to 'sneak' onto your system entirely.

Hope this helps?

Warmest Regards.

Julie

I have removed them and i know everything about the site. I just wanted to know if they are rather serious or just ad related. I remove them at the end of my day when i turn of my pc anyhow so i just wanted to be save in case they do something rather fishy (track keystrokes for example.)

They are not serious but they are annoying!  Just be careful what you download and make sure to pay attention to what is checked marked that shouldn't be.  PUA's do not track you, etc and are not ad related.

Hope this helps.

Julie

i didnt download anything. they just appear everytime i do a survey on the site above

Hi Fleks,

What does that tell you?  Don't complete any surveys.

Hope this helps.

Julie

well it pays and they are not annoying at all to me - i always do surveys if im bored/close to going offline anyhow so i just do the survey,restart my pc via your adwcleaner and boom,i dont even really see that they are there (i only use this site rarely so i dont mind)

small update to this matter (in case anyone else has this annoyance): these PUP's are just cookies used by the site so if you check the option to delete these after every session then you will not have any PUP's - started noticing this after swapping over to edge and i use the delete everything after each session anyhow so happy coincidence 

Hi Fleks,

I'm curious, do you have Adwcleaner? and do you run the program ?  PUP's are not cookies.  They are connected to other software/surveys that the user(s) downloads.

Julie

doublechecked too it goes likes this:

survey -> close browser -> run adwcleaner -> pups found -> dont repair -> open browser again AND delete cookies -> close browser -> run adw cleaner again -> no pups found - so 100% cookie related - probably just gathering personal data via those i would guess and making profit over those eventho they pay you for survey