1. What is adware?
Adware, or advertising-supported
software, is software that generates ads that install themselves on
a computer when a person downloads some other program form the internet
(Baltzan&Phillips, 2009). According the Wikipedia website, some types of adware
are also spyware and can be classified as privacy invasive software. Adware has been criticized by web users for sometimes including codes that track users' personal information and passes
it on to the third parties without the user's authorization or knowledge (What is adware?).
2. What does adware do?
Adware is originally used as legitimate revenue
source for companies who offer their software to web users for free (webopedia). Web users who wish to download free
software can get these programs from free providers; in exchange, these program
providers will have their sponsoring advertisements show on the program users'
computer screen when the downloaded program is in used. These sponsored
advertisements usually run in a small section of the software interface or as pop-up
ad on program users' computer desktop, and they will disappear once
the web user has finished using the program (webopedia). By letting these sponsored
advertisements share a small section of the computer screen, web users can
enjoy using software for free. If they want to get rid of all the
advertisements that come along with the downloaded program, all They need
to do is to purchase the software, then use the registration key
to have all the sponsored ads disabled. The article on webopedia.com uses the example of one of the
popular e-mail programs--Eudora to illustrate how adware is used: Eudora e-mail
users can either run Eudora
in the sponsored mode, in which an ad window will display in the program with
up to three sponsored toolbar links, or they can purchase the software so that
that will not be bothered by the ads.
The original design of adware program solely acts as a tool
of advertisement. However, some adware programs get aggressive and become
annoying spyware which will track program users' personal
information and provide these information to third parties without the users'
permissions. This type of adware programs enters web users' computer when they
are surfing the internet. They hide inside different downloadable programs, such
as peer-to-peer share files. Sponsored
advertisements will automatically show up once the user downloads and opens
these infected files. Even worse, these adware programs will plant tracking cookies, key loggers, or perform intrusive hard drive
scans (Ponder, n.d.), track user's personal information
such as web surfing behaviors, pictures, or even sensitive information such as
online password and credit card numbers, then passes the information to
unauthorized parties.
3. How to detect and remove adware
programs?
According to JD Moy's article on how to detect and remove
adware program, there are "symptoms" that can indicate a computer is
at risk of adware. These symptoms include:
- The computer is
running slow or even crashes.
- There are random
pop-up ads keep on showing up on the computer screen
- The homepage changed
without user's knowledge
- The computer has
been used for downloading music, games or other online programs or files
There are many programs have been developed to help web
users to detect and remove adware, and most of the antivirus software can
perform this job as well. According to Wikipedia.org, programs like Ad-ware,
Malwarebytes's Anti-Malware and Spybot-search & Destroy are more popular
among users:
- Ad-Aware
is an anti-spyware and anti-virus program developed by Lavasoft, which
can detects and removes malware, spyware and adware
on a computer. Besides three paid-for products, Lavasoft
also provide free versions of Ad-Aware for web users to download.
- Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware (MBAM) is a program
that is designed especially for the detection and removal of malware,
which includes adware. This program does not provide anti-virus service.
- Spybot-search & Destroy (S&D) is a
spyware and adware removal program which is compatible with MS
Windows 95 and later version of Windows. It is currently released as
freeware.
Reference:
Wikipedia - Adware, Peer-to-Peer, Ad-Aware, MBAM, S&D
ArticleSnatch - JD Moy
What IS - Adware
Webopedia - Difference Between Adware & Spyware
eHow - Ponder, J.