What is Adware?

There are two basic kinds of adware…harmless and malicious. The harmless variety is called adware. The malicious variety is called spyware. The terms adware and spyware tend to be used interchangeably. However, they are not the same thing. Adware is usually a marketing tool. Spyware’s primary intent is getting your personal information such as passwords, credit card and bank account numbers, street and email addresses.

Harmless Adware

Harmless adware comes in two distinct flavors. The first is similar to most passive advertising methods such as magazine ads or billboards. It shows banners, popups and other types of ads while you are visiting a website. No information is collected and sent back to the advertiser unless you fill out a form asking for more information.

The second kind of adware is software that is frequently included with free applications. The end user license agreements clearly state that they are collecting statistical information for advertisers in exchange for you getting a free product. When you install the program, the adware writes itself to your windows registry.

The program was loaded onto your computer to monitor you web surfing, music preferences and internet buying habits. The advertisers have no interest in your personal information, just what sites you visit, music you listen to and where you shop online. Most of these programs are part of marketing research done by legitimate companies that sell the aggregated results to legitimate advertisers. Adware is rarely malicious and normally won’t hurt your computer.

So, why is harmless adware a problem?

There are two reasons harmless adware can be a problem. First, it can slow down your computer. Second, since very few people ever actually read the end users license agreement, most of the time, the adware was installed on your computer and is collecting anonymous information about your habits without your permission. I don’t know about you, but I really don’t like people collecting information about me without telling me they are doing it. I also don’t like having my computer slow down to a crawl because adware is using up all of my system resources. A single adware program is unlikely to affect performance enough that you would notice it. However, several adware programs running simultaneously can cause the machine to crash.

Malicious Adware or Spyware

Spyware can be compared to a thief that silently goes through all of the files on your computer looking for personal information that can be sold to criminals. Spyware collects the following private information from you:

• Email address book
• Copies of your chats and Instant messages
• Online banking sites
• Credit card numbers
• Users IDs and passwords

“Wait a minute”, you say, “I don’t store that stuff on my computer.”

Actually you do. It’s located in temporary files, browser favorite lists, cookies, temporary internet download and email address files, as well as chat and instant message logs, caches and history files. The Spyware program collects all of this information and sends it back to their masters.

What do the Thieves do with the Information?

The collected information is used to manufacture phony credit cards and driver’s licenses, apply for loans, passports, and replacement social security cards to be used by an illegal alien or someone with a criminal record to get a job pretending to be you. Finally, they send spyware infected emails to everyone in your address book pretending to be you.

Then they sell the credit cards, driver’s licenses, passports and social security cards to other criminals over and over again. In fact they try to sell your information as many times as possible in as short a time period as possible because they know that eventually you will realize it’s been stolen and cancel the credit cards, freeze the bank funds and inform the authorities that your identity has been stolen.

What can I do to protect myself?

Unfortunately, anti-virus programs don’t detect adware and spyware because they are not viruses. Firewalls only block the outgoing messages and can not remove them from your registry.

There are several programs that can remove adware and spyware from your computer both free and for sale. The biggest draw back of some of the free ones is that they don’t give you a choice whether you want the adware or spyware removed.

Why would I want to keep adware and spyware?

All spyware should be removed. However, some of those free programs you use will stop working if you remove the adware. Remember that was a condition for getting to use the program free. Also, you may want to see ads about products that are of interest to you. Most commercial programs allow you to pick and choose what you want to remove.

How often should I run my adware and spyware detection program?

It’s probably a good idea to run your adware and spyware removal program any time you download and install a new application and periodically, perhaps weekly if you do a lot of surfing, for safety.