Remove Stlvld Virus — How to Fix Guide

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Stlvld pop-up alerts may appear out of the blue, covering the subject of the page you went to or opening your web browser when you don’t wish it to be opened.

Clicking the Stlvld ad can result in the injection of various malware or unwanted programs. In this post, you will see the guide of Stlvld popups clearing in various manners, and also inspecting your computer for additional viruses presence.

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What are Stlvld pop-ups?

Stlvld popups are an effect of adware action. Adware is a sort of malware that shows you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click promotions, which creates a major volume of revenue for adware distributors. These advertisements might consist of sometimes shocking content, or have a link to malicious content/website, due to the fact that adware maintainers have no purpose to inspect the goodness of the content they are going to show – their single target is cash.

Stlvld push notification

Stlvld push notification.

Pop-up advertising itself is a very good, cheap and very productive marketing solution1. It allows the seller to link the buyers’ interest to their website, as well as the buyers to receive the dynamic updates on the goods they wish to purchase. When the person will receive a pop-up notification that the TV set he desires to buy is offered at the online store he/she visited earlier with a 15% price cut, one will undoubtedly use this possibility and purchase it. Taking into consideration the extremely low price for the popups and their targeting, such a promotion and marketing method is a favorite thing amidst the marketing departments of big online retailers.

Nonetheless, such a successful strategy could not be missed by malware creators. Potential to demonstrate the popup advertisements forcibly to the victims of malware invasion is a great basis for malevolent manipulations with the popup promotions. And Stlvld.com advertisements is among hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Here is a short details for the Stlvld site
SiteStlvld.com
HostingAS39572 DataWeb Global Group B.V.
Netherlands, Amsterdam
Infection TypeAdware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address185.56.234.205
SymptomsAnnoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behaviorTherecode247, Topreqdusa, News
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Stlvld virus?

There are a huge amount of ways of becoming infected by the adware that trigger the Stlvld popups storm. A lion’s part of this virus incidents is after the freeware or cracked programs, that are distributed on the peering networks. Free software may additionally be downloaded from the official website, and the adware is presented as a legit bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A plenty of people frequently make use of the unreliable programs from untrusted providers: abandonware, a wide range of apps that are free of cost, or even hacked programs. All of these kinds of applications are dangerous, since it is extremely easy to include a Stlvld 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.

Stlvld popup malware can also be hidden in the advertisement somewhere on the unusual site. Such websites are generally packed with intense and blinking advertisements, and their owners typically approve any promotions to be posted on their page. Thus, clicking on such banners is a shot in the dark: only the ad contractor knows what will occur when you click this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you can additionally receive something far more risky, like ransomware or coin miner; the large share of coin miners distribution is exactly after the malicious promotions.

People dislike popups

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

Potentially unwanted programs, like Stlvld pop-up virus may cause a wide range of problems on your computer. Distracting is not the single effect – pop-up notifications may show you the advertisements, where you are offered to get one more unknown program, or “a effective security tool”. Scareware is usually distributed with the last slogun. Potentially unwanted applications, in turn, may have spyware functions. And it is pretty hard to distinguish the unwanted app from a legit one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the potentially unwanted programs and pseudo antiviruses, popup-related ads are also exploited as a spreading method by various trojan viruses, for example – coin miners. The consequences of activity of such viruses is 100% unwanted, and can cost you hundreds or even thousands of dollars. And even if you are not interacting with these promotions, they may be clicked by whoever who also uses your personal computer – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the things may become much more serious, and it will be much harder to deal with it without data loss. It is recommended to wipe out the viruses with anti-malware applications as soon as possible.

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

The tutorial of Stlvld adware clearing includes 2 sections. Initially, we need to eliminate the malware, and after that deal with the results of its activity. The elimination task is really simple, due to the fact that it can be performed even with making use of Microsoft Defender – anti-malware program that is present on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. Nevertheless, as a result of its huge resources usage, as well as some errors that can be critical for some kinds of individuals, Defender is oftentimes disabled by the users, so its usage is probably impossible. Furthermore, various trojan viruses are capable to shut off the embedded antivirus. It is far better to use the separated program that will not have such vulnerabilities.

I’d suggest you to use Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven anti-malware tool that will certainly erase the malware from your personal computer and also create an invulnerable shield with a Proactive protection function. However, let’s take care of Stlvld adware initially.

Removing Stlvld 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 Stlvld 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 browsers are reset, you need to ensure that your web browser will definitely connect the appropriate DNS while connecting to the web page you need. Make a text file titled “hosts” on your pc’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 much harder to fix, specifically without the anti-malware program. The majority of adware variations that are utilized to show you the Stlvld pop-up promotions are adjusting the deep browser settings, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you try to fix your browser settings after your machine was penetrated by pop-up-related malware, your browser will crash soon. In certain cases, you will see no crash, however, significant lag spike after pressing the “settings” key. Browser will stop reacting for ~ 30 secs, and after that it will be back to the typical, until you attempt to open settings once again.

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 Stlvld Pop-ups?

Name: Stlvld

Description: Stlvld - 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 Stlvld.com push notifications?” or “why do Stlvld.com pop-ups keep appearing on Chrome even after AdBlock installation?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with Stlvld 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 ads on Wikipedia.
  2. GridinSoft Anti-Malware review and also the reasons why I suggest it for malware elimination.
  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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