Rogue pop-up removal - home PC

[augustinetez]

Hopefully this is allowed here - Mods, please close if not appropriate.

I've got one program, Corels Paint Shop Pro 2018, that I use rarely but I keep getting a pop-up on my desktop with a discount offer for a newer version.

Any ideas how to find out where it is getting in and cutting it off at the knees to stop it?

I've got the program firewalled in Eset to not allow any in or out communication of any sort, but this pop-up is still getting through and it's not small (in on-screen image size) and is most annoying.

I don't want to remove the program because it has a couple of useful features that the old Paint Shop Pro 10 I mostly use is missing.

 

[rjenkinsgb]

Run CCleaner and look in Tools > Startup, both the Windows and Scheduled tasks tabs.

I'd give it a 99% probability there is a background or scheduled "update" task for the program & that's what is causing the display. Just disable that if you can find it.

 

[augustinetez]

Yep, did a bit of digging and DIM.exe seems to be the culprit.

Autostarts (so running constantly) and talks back home to verify license number and who knows what else.

Dis-assembling some of the dll's and other files associated with it and surprise surprise, there it is labelled as 'tracker something or other" (forgot to write it down).

As soon as I can find an open source program to do the extra functions I need, this is going ta'ta's.

Oh, the extra function is watermarking my photo's before putting them up on my website, the other .webp conversion but now got that covered.

 

[rjenkinsgb]

the extra function is watermarking my photo's before putting them up on my website

GIMP is free and can do that; it's bit odd to get used to, but pretty good generally.

How to Add a Watermark in GIMP (Step-by-Step Guide)

If you’ve spent more than 5 minutes online, you’ve probably seen an image with a watermark. Watermarks make it easier to prove the source of an image, whether

thegimptutorials.com

 

[augustinetez]

I've noticed that IrfanView can apparently do it as well, also found a little Java applet - jaco watermark - so might play with both of those and see how they go.

Gimp looks like too much messing about for adding a simple watermark

 

[augustinetez]

For anybody else that might come across this thread, jaco watermark, although it works well, is a bit limited in functionality - OK if you don't want to do anything fancy.

IrfanView actually works very similar to how I was doing it in Paint Shop Pro 2018, so not much of a leap in the learning curve to change over to, just a bit quirky in how you position the watermark (watermark is actually another image you create first).