What is Adware?

Adware is a word arising from the abbreviation of Advertising Software, meaning programs that show advertisements.

Adware (Advertising Software) Virus

Adware is software that displays advertisements using any type of tools, such as pop-ups, banners, changes to the homepage, or browser search.

The ad relates to products or services offered by the creators themselves or third parties.

Generally, these applications add graphic icons to the toolbars of Internet browsers or Mail clients.

These special taskbars contain predefined keywords for the user to reach ad-supported sites, regardless of search.

The most common function of programs like Adware, Spyware is to collect information about the user and distribute it to advertising companies or other related organizations, but it has also been used by government agencies to gather information against criminal suspects such as software piracy.

The most common purpose is to be distributed to advertising companies or other relevant organizations.

Normally, this software sends information about websites visited and the information requested on these servers, as well as information about scanned IP addresses and URLs.

This information is used for marketing purposes and is often the source of SPAM emails as they can target personalized ads to the affected user. It is also possible to create statistics profiles of internet users with this data.

Spyware can be installed on the system in a number of ways, including the Trojan Horse that installs the user’s specific ActiveX controls or web pages that contain code that exploits certain vulnerability applications such as Shareware or Freeware downloaded from the Internet.

How to Protect?

The sites displayed need to be verified, as it is very common that these applications are self-installing or offered by suspicious companies.

If possible, such practices should be carefully read their privacy policies.

Applications that simulate being anti-spyware with spyware have an important appearance. You should check that an application is trying to install automatically without your permission.

Websites with pornographic or propaganda content may contain high levels of malicious programs that can be self-installed using various vulnerabilities in the browser in the operating system. So try not to view such websites, or block them.

You must configure the administrator permissions of all users created on the computer by verifying user privileges.

This does not always have to be so, it is recommended that each user has their own profile, but with the necessary permissions to carry out their tasks, this reduces the action area of ​​a potential intruder.

These apps are constantly evolving, so it’s important to have updated antivirus and proactive capabilities to detect these apps and prevent their installation.

The Difference Between Adware and Spyware

The difference between Adware and Spyware is that the latter is usually included in Shareware programs, and therefore we accept the legal conditions during the installation of these programs, without realizing they allow them to be executed on our computers.

An example of this would be advertising banners that appear on various software and are partially a form of payment for using these programs for free.

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