|
|
Adware
Adware is software that runs on your personal
computer to display advertisements for goods
at services. You cannot control when these
ads appear nor is there an easy way to shut
them off. Adware is generally only annoying
and intrusive. However, poorly written adware
may interfere with the use of your personal
computer or even cause it to crash.
Adware generally comes along with other software
that you download from sites on the Internet.
Often there is a small notice buried in the
legal agreement you are asked to accept to
use the downloaded software; sometimes there
is not, and the Adware is part of the downloaded
program or a separate additional program
that installs with the downloaded program.
Some developers use the revenue generated
from the display of advertisements by adware
to cover the expense of developing software
they distribute for free on the Internet.
Adware is closely related to
spyware and
can store information about your
activity
on your computer or browsing
the Internet.
The surest way to avoid Adware
is to never
download and install anything
from the Internet.
More practically, you should
be wary of installing
software from a site that is
not well known
and purchase a special program
to eliminate
adware.
Adware protection programs operate
in one
of two ways; on demand, they
can look through
the files on your computer and
identify those
that are adware, or they can
run all the
time checking that everything
coming to your
computer from the Internet is
free of adware.
In either form, the adware protection
software
looks for patterns in the binary
files that
match patterns in its list of
known adware.
If a file matches one of the
known patterns,
the adware protection program
deletes it.
In order for your protection against adware
to remain effective, you must update the
list of patterns regularly from the vendor
of the adware eliminator. |
|
|
