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A Primer on Adware
and Spyware
Adware is a term used to describe software that will display those
advertising banners you see popup when you are on the internet.
Adware programs are many times designed to also collect
information about a user on his or her pc. Information collected
can include browsing habits or sites visited while on the
computer. Adware is different from spyware in that spyware
programs typically do not get the computer owner’s permission
before they install themselves. The main purpose of an adware
program is to display commercial advertisements to you at
pre-determined intervals and from different internet server feeds.
Like adware, spyware also comes down from the internet and sends
information about the user’s habits. But one of the major
differences, as mentioned previously, is that spyware installs on
the user’s computer and collects information about him or her
without permission. The information sent is usually just data
needed for a marketing campaign but sometimes they are designed to
collect confidential information from the user.
Typically these applications are not a hybrid of the two types:
adware and spyware. The main difference is because spyware
installs without the user knowing of its existence and adware must
always get the user’s permission. So basically one runs known and
the other runs unknown.
And how did these adware and spyware applications come about?
Software application development is an expensive business and
developers need to fund their creation somehow. Development costs
continued to rise and that is when software developers began using
adware from within their applications to generate revenue for
development of their main products. Spyware is used in this case
too and there are even some software programs that eventually
became totally free as their funding was covered by the revenues
generated from adware.
Adware started out so innocently. It was just a way of delivering
commercials to computer users and potential customers that were
shown while some other software product was being used. But then
it grew into a sophisticated piece of software that can gather
information about a user and the hardware and software
configuration used on his or her computer. Adware today can do
things like alter your browser settings and behavior and start
other computer applications that will run in background and send
reports pertaining to your computer activity, browsing habits, and
software versions you are running.
So let’s summarize what adware and spyware do. Here are a few of
their activities:
Add links to assorted online magazines.
Collect information about a user’s browser activity for commercial
and marketing purposes.
Updating web pages with new commercials (either adding new ones or
just replacing those already there.
Actually changing the homepage in a browser so as to display a
company’s own commercial.
Causing a computer to slow down so much that it is rendered
ineffective.
This software has at times been reported to call telephone numbers
at extremely high toll costs.
Access and take credit card information and passwords stored on
the computer.
Install icons on your computer where you will wonder where they
came from.
Article Source:
http://www.spywaretool.com |
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