What is Adware and Spyware?
Adware and spyware often work hand-in-hand, slowing Internet connections to a crawl, bombarding desktops with popup ads, and compromising security. This article describes what adware and spyware.
Generally speaking, adware is a
software that installs an
additional component that feeds
advertising, often by installing a
toolbar or by delivering popup ads
or in your internet browser.
Some adware may hijack your browser start or search pages, redirecting you some off-color site . Unless you're a fan of guerilla marketing, such tactics can be annoying. Worse, the mechanism that feeds the advertising can introduce system anomalies or incompatibilites that cause problems with other programs and can even disrupt the functioning of the operating system.
A hijacked start page or toolbar can be difficult to recover to its original settings because adware typically integrates itself in a manner that exceeds the average user's technical capabilities. Even more frustrating, the now present system anomalies can prevent even savvy users from accessing the system areas they need to remove the offending program.
What is Spyware?
Spyware
surreptitiously
monitors your PC and
Internet use. Some
of the worst
examples of spyware
include keyloggers
that record
keystrokes or
screenshots, sending
them to remote
attackers who hope
to glean user IDs,
passwords, credit
card numbers, and
other sensitive
personal
information.
Most often, though, spyware takes a more benign (but still quite offensive) form. The information gathered, often referred to as "traffic data", can consist of monitoring the web sites visited, ads clicked, and time spent on certain websites. But even in its more benign form, the action of collected data can morph into something far more insidious.
Spyware tracking can link your system's unique numerical hardware ID (MAC address) and IP address, combine it with your surfing habits and correlate it with any personal information gathered when you registered for free programs or entered data in web forms. The spyware purveyor then trades this information with affiliate advertising partners, building an increasingly complex dossier on who you are and what you like to do on the Internet.