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Adware and Anti-Adware Software - What You Need To Know

Adware Product Capabilities Chances are that if you're reading this article, an adware program has compromised the integrity of either your computer, or the computer of someone you know -- and you don't quite know what went wrong or what to do about. This article will describe what Adware is, how to avoid it, and how to get rid to if.

What Is Adware Software?

Adware is software that displays advertisements on your PC similar to the way that the Internet displays advertisements on websites. The major difference between adware and Internet advertisements however is that you don't have to be online to see the ads. Adware installs commercial material onto your computer -- making it available whether you're online or offline.

During its conception, using adware software wasn't any more bothersome than viewing Internet advertisements. People willingly (and of course, knowingly) downloaded and used adware because it was part of a free software program and in most cases, it was harmless. Today however, adware programs are more like spyware programs and instead of merely displaying advertisements, they collect information about what you're doing on your computer (or what you have on your computer) and they then send that information to a website somewhere -- all without your knowledge and permission.

To understand the reasons behind this shift, we can look at why adware software was developed in the first place, and then consider how some merchants have turned its intention into something completely unbearable.

How Adware Software Came To Be

In about the late 90s, struggling programmers rented a section of their software's interface to advertisers as a way to generate a little income. The entire idea assumed that software users would click on these ads so that developers could earn a small commission fee or finders fee. In other types of software, such as shareware, users would pay a registration fee to access an ad-free version of the program. That was the idea at least. Somewhere down the road, the opportunity was exploited beyond usability.

The Problem With Adware Software

One problem with adware is security. Because adware often updates itself to show fresh new advertisements instead of the same ones over and over, it creates an insecure hole of malicious opportunity between the company that's serving the ads and the person viewing them.

Another problem is overuse of system resources. Adware tends to be bloated with programming code that demands more than what the average computer can deliver. An example is when adware consistently checks to see if a program is connected to the Internet or when it monitors the keyboard to recognize specific -- i.e. -- "advertisement triggering" patterns. Over time, this constant monitoring crashes computers and it creates the potential to lose important data.

Although the bulk of adware attempts to avoid resource hogging and security holes, the few of them that were poorly programmed or that simply caused more problems that they were worth gave all of them a terrible reputation. And that's why we have special software designed to remove adware from our computers. We call them 'special' because adware often operates from a computer's registry and is thus some of the most difficult software to get rid of.

Combating The Effects Of Adware Software

NoAdware, AdWareAlert, and AdwareBOT are three of the most well known adware removal programs we have because they're the most effective. To best protect your system from the damage caused by adware, we strongly recommend that you don't use it. Simply practice prevention and avoid using freeware that displays advertisements.

That means leaving the free toolbars and Outlook smiley extensions alone, updating your computer with new security patches, and installing adware blocking software onto your system.

If you've already installed adware, download and install one of the programs above. They're completely ad-free. All programs however will help you detect the adware that's on your system and then walk you through the process of getting rid of it.