What Is Adware and What Can You Do to Prevent It from Affecting Your System?

Adware is used as a supplemental program in some cases. Adware can be used as a part of an internet program and used as a way of letting you use a service without paying for it: rather than using a program with limited features and rather than paying the full cost of the program, you can choose an ad-supported version. The adware used will track the sites you visit and ads that are related to your interests will be shown to you during your session.

Of course, that is an example of your consent to having adware installed on your system. Another possibility is that you install software and don't fully read the part of the user agreement that suggested that third-party software was included to see how the software was used on your computer.

This third-party software is typically adware. With it, the person who wrote the software can collect money from advertisers who will be able to know which users might be interested in their products.

For many people. However, adware quickly becomes an annoyance. In addition to feeling uncomfortable that they are being watched – associating the feeling with being spied on and the adware with spyware – they just want to be able to go about using a program or surfing the internet without a steady stream of advertising or even advertising pop-up windows slowing them down.

As a result, they start looking for ways of removing adware from their computer.

Removing adware from your computer can be done by installing ad-blocking software. Removing adware, in many cases, can also be done with the installation of anti-spyware programs.

But why settle for removing adware when you can make efforts to keep it from getting on your computer to begin with? Rather than dealing with adware and having to find ways of removing adware from your system, consider doing the following:
· Read the licensing agreements that come with software programs that you are thinking about installing. If a mention is made of third-party software that will track the way you use the program or the software is listed as ad-supported, do not agree to the terms of service and choose an alternate program. In many cases, the user agreement or licensing agreement are available to you before you download and install the software;
· Choose the free but feature limited software or pay for the program rather than using the advertising supported version to avoid installing adware on your system;
· If you think that you are getting adware or spyware on your system and you have been using Internet Explorer as your web browser, consider making the switch to another browser that contains ad-blocks;
· Make sure that the security patches for your computer's operating system as well as your anti-spyware and firewalls are up to date.

In easer words, the best means of removing adware from your computer is to not install it in the first place. Taking control of your computer is not only the best way of preventing adware but also some of the more dangerous security threats including spyware, trojans, worms and viruses. Once you have the right software installed you can now Surf the net with more confidence, privacy and therefore with more security.

Article Source: http://www.superfeature.com
By: kirby

...Read more!

Is "Malware" Malicious

According to Wikipedea "Malware" is: "software designed to infiltrate or damage a computer system without the owner's informed consent."

In today's technology tip we have some definitions of the names you might have heard for various kinds of malware.

computer viruses - a computer program that can copy itself onto a computer without the permission or knowledge of the user (complete wikipedia definition). Viruses could be introduced to your computer from a disk, flash drive, CD.

computer worms - Similar to a computer virus but a worm can "Self replicate" itself to other computers throughout a computer network without any user involvement (complete wikipedia definition).

trojan horse - Just like the mythological Trojan Horse, these programs appear to be useful free downloads but when you download them to your computer you also download other unwanted and malicious programs onto your computer (complete wikipedia definition). Trojans could thus be used to install all kinds of malware onto your computer.

spyware - Malware that is downloaded to your computer with the purpose of tracking or recording the user's activities without the user's consent (complete wikipedia definition). Such malicious software could be used to log keystrokes to get passwords, or just track internet search histories to target pop-up advertisements.

adware - Some free downloads from the internet will ask the user for consent to install spyware software on the users computer as part of the download agreement (complete wikipedia definition). Such software is usually refered to as adware instead of spyware since the user has given consent to be tracked in exchange for some free software.

web cookies - These are usually harmless bits of text that are downloaded automatically whenever you open a website. (complete wikipedia definition) The cookie is used to track your visits to a specific website. The cerators of websites use cookies to gather data about who and how often their website is being accessed.



How to clean malware off your computer?
For starters, here's a popular free download for finding spyware on your computer: Ad-Aware from Lavasoft: http://www.lavasoftusa.com/
They have a free version that you can try.

Then there's the anti-virus software you can buy. Here's a review of the Top Antivirus Software from PC World:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,124475/article.html


You might want to consider protecting your personal computer with these products. If you already have some antivirus software you might want to check it's expiration date.

...Read more!