Clicking on the Stoutlionslick.com promotion may lead to the injection of other malware or unwanted programs. In this post, you will see the manual of Stoutlionslick.com popups removal in multiple methods, as well as inspecting your PC for extra malware presence.

What are Stoutlionslick.com pop-ups?

Stoutlionslick.com popups are a consequence of adware action. Adware is a kind of malware that suggests you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click promotions, which creates a massive amount of earnings for adware distributors. These advertisements might have explicit composition, or have a web link to malevolent content/website, because adware maintainers have no reason to inspect the goodness of the material they are going to show – their single target is cash.

Stoutlionslick.com push notification.

Pop-up advertising itself is a good, affordable and also extremely efficient marketing instrument¹. It permits the vendor to attach the customers’ attention to their site, as well as the buyers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they intend to purchase. When the person will get a pop-up alert that the TV set he likes to buy is provided at the online shop he/she saw previously with a 15% price cut, one will surely use this opportunity and get it. Taking into consideration the incredibly low price for the popups and their targeting, such a marketing instrument is a favorite thing amongst the marketing departments of large online sellers.

Nevertheless, such a profitable system could not be missed by virus creators. Potential to demonstrate the popup advertisements forcibly to the targets of malware attack is an excellent basis for malicious manipulations with the popup ads. And Stoutlionslick.com advertisements is just one of hundreds that are “employed” in this system.

Site	Stoutlionslick.com
Hosting	AS39572 DataWeb Global Group B.V. United States, Washington
Infection Type	Adware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address	192.243.59.12
Symptoms	Annoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behavior	Sigekopyapa, Topshopfree, Rousedmilk
Fix Tool	GridinSoft Anti-MalwareTo remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Stoutlionslick.com virus?

There are a number of ways of getting infected by the adware that trigger the Stoutlionslick.com popups tornado. A lion’s part of this virus instances is after the freeware or cracked programs, that are distributed on the peering networks. Freeware may likewise be downloaded from the main site, and the adware is offered as a legitimate bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A huge amount of people often work with the dubious programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, a wide range of apps that are free of cost, or even hacked programs. All of these types of software are unsafe, since it is very simple to include a Stoutlionslick.com malware under the cover of part of the license hacking script, or as a component of the self-made algoritm within the Windows optimization tool.

Stoutlionslick.com popup malware may additionally be hidden in the ad somewhere on the strange web page. Such web pages are typically full of bright and blinking ads, and their owners generally approve any type of promos to be published on their page. Thus, clicking such banners is a shot in the dark: only the ad contractor knows what will occur when you press this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or undesirable programs, you may also receive something a lot more hazardous, like ransomware or coin miner; the large share of coin miners circulation is exactly after the malicious promotions.

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

Potentially undesirable programs, like Stoutlionslick.com pop-up virus can initiate a lot of troubles on your PC. Distracting is not the single effect – pop-up notifications can show you the banners, where you are offered to get one more unknown program, or “a perfect security tool”. Scareware is usually distributed under the last motto. Potentially unwanted applications, in turn, can have spyware functionality. And it is very hard to distinguish the undesirable app from a good one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the potentially unwanted programs and fake antiviruses, popup-related advertisements are also chosen as a distribution method by various trojan viruses, for example – coin miners. The consequences of actions of such malware is 100% unpleasant, and can cost you several hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not tapping these banners, they may be clicked by whoever who also makes use of your computer – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the situation can become much more serious, and it will be much harder to solve it without data loss. It is recommended to eliminate the viruses with anti-malware programs as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Stoutlionslick.com pop-up advertisements?

The tutorial of Stoutlionslick.com adware removal contains 2 sections. First, we need to exterminate the malware, and after that take care of the consequences of its activity. The elimination process is really simple, since it may be performed even with the use of Microsoft Defender – anti-malware tool that is present on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. Nevertheless, as a result of its significant resources consumption, as well as some failures that may be pivotal for some categories of individuals, Defender is frequently disabled by the users, so its utilization is most likely impossible. Furthermore, a wide range of trojan viruses are capable to shut off the embedded antivirus. It is better to use the separated program that will not have such weakness.

I’d recommend you to use Gridinsoft Anti-Malware² – a well-proven security tool that will surely erase the viruses from your system and also make an impenetrable shield with a Proactive protection feature. But let’s manage Stoutlionslick.com adware first.

Download GridinSoft Anti-Malware

Removing Stoutlionslick.com 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.
• 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.
• When the scan is over, you may choose the action for each detected virus. For all files of Stoutlionslick.com malware the default option is “Delete”. Press “Apply” to finish the malware removal.

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

1. Open “Settings and more” tab in upper right corner, then find here “Settings” button. In the appeared menu, choose “Reset settings” option :
2. After picking the Reset Settings option, you will see the following menu, stating about the settings which will be reverted to original :

1. Open Menu tab (three strips in upper right corner) and click the “Help” button. In the appeared menu choose “troubleshooting information” :
2. In the next screen, find the “Refresh Firefox” option :

After choosing this option, you will see the next message :

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 :

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 browser will definitely connect the correct DNS while connecting to the site you want. Create a text file named “hosts” on your pc’s desktop, then open it and fill it with the following text³:

# 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.

However, there is one issue that makes things a lot more difficult to restore, especially without the anti-malware software. A lot of adware variants that are utilized to show you the Stoutlionslick.com pop-up advertisements are changing the deep browser configurations, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you attempt to change your browser settings after your machine was infected by pop-up-related malware, your browser will certainly crash soon. In certain cases, you will see no crash, however, huge lag spike after pushing the “settings” key. Browser will stop reacting for ~ 30 secs, and afterwards it will be back to the typical, till 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.

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.

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.

References

1. More about pop-up ads on Wikipedia.
2. GridinSoft Anti-Malware overview and also the reasons why I advise it for malware removal.
3. Official Microsoft guide for hosts file reset.