Protecting Your Computer From Adware

By John Williams on July 3, 2009

Adware is one of the most common nuisances faced by computer users. This annoyance is often bundled into free software and once installed on your system, displays pop up ads, banner ads or websites. These programs are irritating, distracting and can negatively impact your computer?s performance. Fortunately, these pesky programs can be found and removed.

If your computer is suddenly, sluggish, plagued with pop-up adds or you have suddenly experienced a change in your homepage, chances are, you have adware on your computer. Some types of this software are deemed malware, and invade your privacy. It collects information about a user, and their browsing habits, and displays advertisements on your web browser based on the information it collects on your browsing patterns.

This snoopy software can invade ones privacy, because much of its characteristics have begun to resemble spy-ware. Much of it contains a code, which tells an advertiser something about you. It will give information to the advertiser, letting them know what sites you have visited, what content you have viewed, and for how long. Advertisers consider this type of data collection to be harmless to the user, but many see it as an invasion of privacy.

Adware is commonly bundled with free software as a means of covering the costs of software development. In order to provide software to end users at no cost, developers sometimes choose to permit adware to be bundled with the program instead of charging for their work. It?s not an inherently flawed business model other than the way in which the advertising impacts the end user. Many people prefer to pay for commercial software even when there are freeware alternatives since they?d prefer to avoid the ads, data collection and browser hijacks which come with adware.

Adware programs are often confused with viruses. They?re both unwanted software, though adware generally doesn?t self-replicate or do anything intentionally malicious. They don?t work in the same way within your system and as such are usually detected and removed using different software. Most antivirus programs won?t detect or protect you from adware and an adware scanner won?t detect or protect you from viruses.

It?s easy enough to detect, eliminate and even immunize your computer from adware using some readily available and inexpensive programs. There are also free programs which remove adware, though most of the free programs don?t perform quite as well as the commercially available options. The best of the adware detection programs will not only detect and remove this irritating software but even prevent them from being installed on your system again. Most adware removal programs are regularly updated automatically to keep your computer protected from the latest adware.

Having a quality firewall can also protect you from adware. Most operating systems have a built in firewall and the firewall included in Windows is usually sufficient, though there are also some available for a small price which provide a higher level of protection. If you?re going to purchase a firewall, make it worth your while by going for high quality instead of low cost. It should go without saying that your firewall will only protect you while it?s turned on, so don?t neglect to do this.

Intrusive, annoying adware is all around us on the web. Thankfully, it?s usually a simple matter to identify and remove this unwanted software. With a good adware scanner and firewall software, you and your computer can surf the web free of the annoyance of adware and with your personal data safe from prying eyes.

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