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How Understanding Adware Can Enhance Your Internet Experience
By Josh George
Adware is truly an amazing thing. While people consider it to be nothing but a software form of aggravation and a risk to their computer, adware has created a positive impact on the Internet. So why does it matter to know about adware? When all is said and done, adware has made a dramatic impact on the Internet that we know of today.
Through the affects of the media, adware is considered nothing but a malicious piece of software that goes around and infects computers. It is important to understand that adware was never meant to be malicious in nature, unlike spyware and malware. This is obviously where the media confuses things. In their stories, the media usually categorize threats as "adware" when in fact they should be using terms like "spyware" or "malware". Adware's primary focus was just to change the paradigm in which advertisements were delivered to potential customers.
Because adware was designed to send advertisements in a unique manner, there was much money to be made by simply adding adware to various types of software. Before you knew it, the funding provided by adware was triggering new forms of software, such as freeware and shareware. The whole idea of being able to download and use software for free also helped develop other new things; online communities. All different types of Internet users started collaborating with one another to make free software better and more functional, and thus rival commercial competitors.
At the same time, adware can be considered as a massive drawback to the Internet. While adware was funding all sorts of different projects, it was also starting to get on people's nerves. Adware started to become more abusive and pop up advertisements on people's computers more often. On top of that, people started installing and adding adware in places where people would never expect it, such as in commercial products and websites. What once used to be a new advertising medium has now become an utter irritation to everyone.
Then the hackers and malicious software programmers jumped into the scene. They started to make their own versions of adware that were more unethical in nature. As businesses became more anxious for new prospects, they turned to developers which would develop a different breed of adware. Instead of just popping up advertisements on people's computers, this adware would track people's browsing habits as well as various other things. This art of tracking and monitoring brought forth a new breed of adware: spyware.
The evolutions of adware didn't stop there though. Taking the theory of bundling adware with software, hackers started taking out the advertising aspects of adware to make them more stealth-like and difficult for users to identify. More and more often you would hear about viruses, Trojans, worms and the like being bundled with free software without the knowledge of users and developers. With a goal to just infect and destroy as much as possible, malware started entering computers worldwide.
Fortunately, things started to look better for adware and its affects on the Internet. Security experts started collaborating with one another to deliver cost-effective and free security software to eliminate malware and spyware, which became financially available to Internet users through legitimate adware. Now, you can find tons of security software freely available on the Internet, a lot of which rivals commercial counterparts.
Currently, adware is still seen as a threat and considered more of a nuisance than anything else. Fortunately, with plenty of adware removal solutions freely and commercially available now, people can now control the types and amount of adware they care to have on their computers.
About the Author
Josh George's website contains free adware information, adware tools, and useful guides proven to help prevent annoying pop-ups from appearing on computers. If you want to learn how to help protect your own system from annoying adware, have a look at his site: Adware Resource.
Article Source: http://www.simplysearch4it.com/article/48266.html
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