What is Adware?
Advertising is the number one way to make money online. People pay for advertising on a variety of sites, such as Google and NYTimes.com, in order to drastically increase their sales revenue.
But an advertisement online is a one and done bit of web space. You visit a website, the ad shows up, and you leave the website – possibly without ever clicking on an ad.
Because online advertising is short term, costs money, and generally advertises only reputable companies, many less-than-trustworthy individuals have developed what is known as “Adware” – small pieces of software that create a constant supply of advertisements on your computer.
Most often this comes in the form of random pop up ads that appear to occur for no particular reason. You will be surfing the web or using some other type of program on our computer and suddenly a pop up ad will show up telling you that you have won a free iPod or that you can easily subscribe to various magazines.
This software is persistent. So persistent that it can cause advertisements to pop up every few minutes. However, while a constant stream of advertisements can be irritating, it is hardly “dangerous” on its own. So what is it about adware that puts everyone so up in arms?
The first is that adware records data and browsing habits in order to target you with advertisements that you are more likely to click on. Its goal is to make sure that you buy something so that the creator of the program makes money. It then uses your data to find ads with products that you are more likely to buy in order to make money off of you. This personal information can also be sold around the Internet.
In addition, adware drastically slows down your computer, because there are multiple programs that are consistently opening and closing on your hard drive. There is also the high probability that although the adware itself may not need to identity theft, it may be tricking you into visiting websites that are fake in order to steal personal information.
While many people that are infected with adware believe that can simply avoid it, you need to remember that it is possible to accidentally click on an ad when it opens directly in front of your cursor, and if you do not realize that you made that click it is very easily to accidentally give personal information to someone who will use it to steal your identity.
Adware is the least immediately dangerous form of malware, but it is still very dangerous nonetheless. It is an incredibly nuisance, one that has the potential to create identity theft and is guaranteed to give you a tremendous headache any time you need to be on the computer for several hours. Those that find that they have adware on their computer should use one of the available adware removal programs to expel it, before you accidentally click on an ad and possibly suffer some very serious consequences.
