adware

What is Adware?

Have you ever downloaded a free program (freeware) from the Internet, installed it, and when you run it, you are overwhelmed with advertisements. That’s adware.

Adware is usually packaged with your free program and you install it when you install the program. That way, when you run the freeware, you are also running the adware in the background, which is creating advertisements on your computer. The advertisements can be anything from relatively simple banners to those annoying pop-ups that show up regardless of what you’re doing. Some adware is so invasive that it will show you advertisements even when you’re not using the program.

Sometimes free programs come with a license agreement that you have to accept before you can download the program. This license agreement often contains information about any adware that is packaged with the program. If you accept the license agreement, you are also agreeing to download and install the adware.

Most adware is considered a legitimate alternative to those who wish to continue to use freeware. The kinds of free programs that most likely contain adware are:

Advanced search engines
Instant news and weather updates
Computer games
Desktop themes and backgrounds
Screen savers
Some email programs
Emoticons and smileys used in email
Programs that say they will improve the efficiency of your computer

Adware can slow your computer because it uses resources like RAM to generate advertisements. Adware can also slow your Internet connection by using bandwidth to retrieve advertisements. Adware can increase the instability of your system because many adware applications are not programmed well. Finally. adware can annoy you and waste huge amounts of your time by popping unwanted ads onto your screen, which require you to close them before you can get back to using your PC.

Warning: Before You Remove Adware

If you decide to remove adware, some shareware programs which you installed may refuse to function. Shareware authors are sometimes paid to include these adware packages with their software. By running their adware, you can think of yourself as supporting the shareware author. Or, you could just pay for the program and keep a clean machine.

Removing Adware

Most software which removes spyware will also remove adware. Some of the adware removal packages we use are AdAware, Spybot Search & Destroy, and SpySweeper.