One of the most common problems of surfing on the internet today is adware and spyware infection. These malicious softwares are the products of very dishonest people and companies to advertise and make money.
Advertising Support Software, or Adware as it’s more commonly known, is a very serious internet problem. The whole aim behind this software’s publishers is to bombard you with annoying pop-up ads to try to get you to buy their products.
How your computer first gets infected with adware is very simple. It’s publishers will own plenty of websites all over the internet with fake links on them. When you go to any one of these sites and click on one of these links, you’re giving the “okay” for adware and spyware to be installed onto your computer - and you won’t even know!
Once the malicious software has been installed, you’ll be getting pop-up advertisements on screen all the time. When you click on these pop-ups, even to close them down, you may be giving the application permission to install more harmful software and viruses onto your computer. This will cause your computer to do strange things, open windows, close windows, freeze and crash on a regular basis.
Spyware is another malicious piece of software and goes hand in hand with adware. Spyware is used to snoop on your browsing patterns and history. It’s publishers then use this information to match you with different types of ads. For example, if you regularly surf stop smoking websites, you will be pestered with stop smoking ads all the time.
Not only does adware and spyware pester you with annoying pop-up ads, install itself onto your PC without your permission or knowledge, but it also takes up memory on your computer’s hard drive. Over a few days, your computer will start running slower and slower, and eventually it’ll crash. Because of the damage that’s been done to your PC you’ll have to reboot it and all data will be lost for good.
There are a few things you can do if you’ve noticed that your computer is showing pop-up ads, is slowing down or crashing etc. The first thing is to take it back to the store you bought it or to another local electronics store. They will be able to erase your adware and spyware infections for you. However, this will probably cost a lot of money and time.
The second thing you can do is do download free anti-adware and anti-spyware software from the internet. This software will scan your pc for adware and spyware and then give you the option to delete it (which you’ll want to do of course). I would highly recommend you go down this route, as it’s free and can be done in less than thirty minutes.