Strist.online Ads Removal Guide — How to Fix It?

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Strist.online pop-up alerts may show up out of the blue, covering the subject of the site you checked or opening your web browser when you don’t want it to be opened.

Clicking on the Strist.online promotion may trigger the injection of various malware or unwanted programs. In this post, you will see the guide of Strist.online popups removal in a couple of manners, and also checking your system for additional malware existence.

GridinSoft Anti-Malware Review
It is better to prevent, than repair and repent!
Removing Strist.online manually may take hours and may damage your PC in the process. I recommend you to download GridinSoft Anti-Malware for threats removal. Allows to complete scan and cure your PC during the trial period.
Gridinsoft Anti-Malware 6-day trial available.
EULA | Privacy Policy | 10% Off Coupon
Subscribe to our Telegram channel to be the first to know about news and our exclusive materials on information security.

What are Strist.online pop-ups?

Strist.online popups are an effect of adware activity. Adware is a kind of malware that suggests you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click ads, which produces a massive amount of revenue for adware distributors. These promotions may have explicit information, or have a web link to malicious content/website, considering that adware maintainers have no reason to inspect the goodness of the content they are going to show – their solitary target is cash.

Strist.online push notification

Strist.online push notification.

Pop-up marketing itself is a good, affordable and also very productive advertising instrument1. It enables the vendor to attach the buyers’ interest to their site, and the customers to receive the dynamic updates on the goods they intend to purchase. When the customer will receive a pop-up notification that the TV set he wishes to buy is provided at the online store he/she saw earlier with a 15% discount, one will definitely use this possibility and get it. Taking into consideration the extremely small cost for the popups and their targeting, such an advertising instrument is a much-loved thing amongst the advertising teams of big online sellers.

However, such a rewarding scheme could not be missed by virus developers. Potential to demonstrate the popup ads forcibly to the targets of malware invasion is an ideal basis for malicious manipulations with the popup promotions. And Strist.online promotions is just one of hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Here is a details for the Strist.online site
SiteStrist.online
HostingAS14061 DigitalOcean, LLC
United States, Santa Clara
Infection TypeAdware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address161.35.234.101
SymptomsAnnoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behaviorPush, News, Mkjxtu
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Strist.online virus?

There are a plenty of ways of becoming infected by the adware that cause the Strist.online popups storm. A lion’s part of this computer virus incidents is after the free software or cracked programs, that are distributed on the peering networks. Freeware can likewise be downloaded from the main website, and the adware is provided as a legal bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A lot of people often make use of the unreliable programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, various utilities that are free, and even hacked programs. Every one of these kinds of programs are dangerous, since it is extremely easy to integrate a Strist.online malware under the guise of part of the license hacking script, or as a part of the self-made algoritm inside of the Windows optimization tool.

Strist.online popup virus can additionally be hidden in the promotion somewhere on the strange web page. Such sites are usually packed with colorful and blinking ads, and their owners usually accept any type of promotions to be published on their web page. For this reason, clicking on such banners is a risky thing: only the advertisement contractor knows what will happen when you click this ad. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you can also get something a lot more risky, like ransomware or coin miner; the substantial share of coin miners distribution is exactly after the malicious advertisements.

People dislike popups

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

Potentially undesirable programs, like Strist.online popup virus can initiate a wide range of different problems on your personal computer. Distracting is not the only problem – pop-ups can present you the ads, where you are offered to download one more unknown program, or “a effective anti-malware tool”. Scareware is usually spread with the last slogun. Potentially unwanted programs, in turn, can have spyware functionality. And it is quite hard to distinguish the unwanted app from a good one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the PUPs and fake antiviruses, popup-related advertisements are also used as a spreading way by various trojan viruses, for instance – coin miners. The consequences of actions of such malware is 100% unwanted, and can cost you hundreds or even thousands of dollars. And even if you are not interacting with these advertisements, they may be clicked by whoever who also uses your PC – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the things can 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 Strist.online pop-up advertisements?

The tutorial of Strist.online adware elimination includes 2 parts. Initially, we need to deal with the malware, and then take care of the effects of its action. The elimination procedure is quite simple, due to the fact that it can be done even with using Microsoft Defender – anti-virus software that is available on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. Nevertheless, as a result of its large resources usage, along with some bugs that can be pivotal for some kinds of users, Defender is frequently disabled by the users, so its utilization is most likely impossible. Furthermore, a wide range of trojan viruses are able to switch off the embedded antivirus. It is better to make use of the separated program that will not have such exposures.

I’d advise you to utilize Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven security tool that will certainly wipe out the viruses from your personal computer and make an impenetrable shield with a Proactive protection function. But let’s manage Strist.online adware first.

Removing Strist.online 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 Strist.online 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 make sure that your browser will be connected the proper DNS while connecting to the web page you need. Create a text file titled “hosts” on your pc’s desktop, after that open it and fill it with the following lines3:

# 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 issue that makes things a lot harder to fix, particularly without the anti-malware software. Most of adware variants that are utilized to show you the Strist.online pop-up advertisements are modifying the deep browser configurations, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you attempt to change your browser settings after your computer was penetrated by pop-up-related malware, your browser will crash quickly. Sometimes, you will see no crash, but large lag spike after pushing the “settings” key. Browser will stop reacting for ~ 30 secs, and afterwards it will be back to the typical, until you attempt to open settings one more time.

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 Strist.online Pop-ups?

Name: Strist.online

Description: Strist.online - 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 Strist.online push notifications?” or “why do Strist.online pop-ups keep appearing on Chrome even after AdBlock installation?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with Strist.online 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

Sending
User Review
3.5 (4 votes)
Comments Rating 0 (0 reviews)

References

  1. More about pop-up advertisements on Wikipedia.
  2. GridinSoft Anti-Malware overview and the reasons why I suggest it for malware removal.
  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.

Leave a Reply

Sending