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Adware

Wednesday, September 26th, 2007

What is Adware?

Adware is software that displays, plays or downloads advertising material. It differs from spyware in that it does not necessarily remotely monitor victims, but rather manipulates their experience in order to increase advertising revenues. Some legitimate software, and especially shareware and freeware versions, can be considered adware because they use adverts as a way to recover development costs. However, these are, for the most part, benign forms of adware. More malicious adware will conceal its presence in memory, and modify system settings so that it becomes difficult to discover and remove. It will then display pop-up adverts when a computer boots, an Internet browser is launched, or even just randomly.

Web surfers can become infected by visiting suspicious websites, downloading from file-sharing networks, or clicking on pop-up adverts. Because adware usually causes an increase of pop-up adverts, clicking on them can become a vicious cycle, with each click causing deeper infection. Downloading music, movies, pictures, games or other applications from file-sharing networks, newsgroups, or public forums can also be equally dangerous. By downloading files from an unverified source, users run the risk of coming in contact with infections. And as mentioned, once a machine is infected, it invites further threats by manipulating what sites you visit and displaying pop-ups that are often confusing, difficult, or impossible to close.

Adware Protection

While some adware can consist of merely harmless advertisements, other adware can be much more destructive.

Abusive adware can cause:

Excessive pop-up ads
Serious decrease in system performance
Manipulation of Web sites
Delivery of spyware and other malware
And more

Many freeware and shareware programs include adware, though most users don’t know about it until after they download. And once adware is downloaded to a system, it can be nearly impossible to get rid of.

The first step in adware protection is to read the license agreement of the program to be downloaded. To avoid downloading adware, make sure there is no language in the agreement regarding delivery of advertisements. Much adware is distributed legitimately by users accepting the license agreement when downloading a new program. By including language that tells of adware in the license agreement, freeware and shareware products have “legitimized” the adware that will download along with their product.

Of course, not all adware can claim legitmacy. Adware can also be automatically loaded a users system just by visiting a site with malicious script or by downloading virtually any type of file – from an email, file sharing network, instant message, Web site forum link and more. Because of the problems with abusive adware, anti virus and anti-spyware software can now classify abusive adware as malicious.

Anti virus and anti-spyware software will detect, remove and provide protection from abusive adware programs – in addition to protection from other malware, such as viruses, spyware, worms and Trojan Horses.

Top anti virus and anti-spyware software includes: McAfee, Norton, and Webroot.