Have you ever been annoyed by the constant popping up of advertisements on your computer? This is adware. Adware is software that gets onto your computer and that will cause advertisements to pop-up as you work on your computer. Often the adware on your computer has been specifically designed for you! That means based on information collected from your browsing history and from the keywords you searched in your search engine the adware was chosen for you. The marketing is focused and is meant to be catered your needs. The information about your searching and surfing habits will be sent back to the adware Web server occasionally and your adware may be updated and adjusted to fit your needs.
Adware and spyware are often used interchangeably. If adware is installed and began running without your consent then it is considered spyware. Often you never asked for it and it came along with something else you downloaded. You received no notification but are now bombarded with pop-up ads. Sometimes in the user agreement of your software it will indicate that some type of advertising or marketing will be installed with the program. No one usually reads these user agreements and so adware enters your computer unknowingly.
Adware can do many things on your computer. In addition to being able to have pop-up ads periodically it can also add links that you didn’t know about. Your favorites folder or you desktop may suddenly have links added to them! These are caused by adware. Since many sites make money off how many people visit their site or how many people click on the links or advertisements they may find ways to get you to go to their sites. It can change your homepage to their site meaning that they will receive more visits to that page. They can also change the site of your search engine to sites that will make money from advertisers.
Adware is a software package that includes many things. They can automatically play and run and download on your computer. It may be going while the software you have downloaded is running or when the application is being used. Advertising in itself is not bad. The annoying thing is how you can be bombarded with the adware and the adware usually becomes out of your control. It is usually not authorized and therefore enters your computer unknowingly. This causes frustration and can slow down your computer’s performance.
Fortunately adware can be removed just as spyware can be. It you want to free your computer of all the clogging and slowing down then there are programs that can remove adware that comes in the form of spyware. If you don’t like your information and activities being tracked, which is very likely, and then spyware removal software can get rid of these nuances. Though spyware and adware are supposed to be different things, adware often becomes spyware because of the way it tracks and sends information back to its adware Web server. Therefore it needs to be removed just as spyware does.
