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Cleaning Adware & Spyware

There are a selection of programs available free on the internet designed to help clean attacks from your computer.
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What is Adware & Spyware?

Adware

Adware or advertising-supported software is any software package which automatically plays, displays, or downloads advertising material to a computer after the software is installed on it or while the application is being used.

Adware helps some developers recover programming development costs, and it may allow the software to be provided to the user of the application free of charge or at a reduced price: due to the advertising, the programmer may still profit from the wide use of their work, motivating them to write, maintain, and upgrade the software product.

Some adware is also shareware, as such it may be used as a term of distinction to differentiate between types of shareware software. What differentiates adware from other shareware is that it is primarily advertising supported. Users may also be given the option to pay for a "registered" or "licensed" copy, which typically removes the advertisements.

Spyware

Spyware is a broad category of malicious software intended to intercept or take partial control of a computer's operation without the user's informed consent. While the term taken literally suggests software that surreptitiously monitors the user, it has come to refer more broadly to software that subverts the computer's operation for the benefit of a third party.

Spyware differs from viruses and worms in that it does not usually self-replicate. Like many recent viruses, spyware is designed to exploit infected computers for commercial gain. Typical tactics furthering this goal include delivery of unsolicited pop-up advertisements; theft of personal information (including financial information such as credit card numbers); monitoring of Web-browsing activity for marketing purposes; or routing of HTTP requests to advertising sites. In some cases, spyware may be used to verify compliance with a software license agreement (or EULA).


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