Spyware and Adware

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Spyware is software that transmits personally identifiable information from your computer to some place in the internet, without your special knowledge. Spyware is typically not a product you install by itself, but instead comes as a small add-on to a program you are downloading. You may or may not be able to disable spyware installation during the larger install. In most cases, the license agreement for the program you are downloading has a few lines telling you about privacy matters. However, most users don’t read the complete agreement and aren’t aware that they are loading spyware on to their systems. Spyware is often associated with music download sites.

A less threatening software problem is adware. Adware is similar to spyware, but does not transmit personally identifiable information, or at least the collector promises not to sell it if it is collected. Instead, aggregated usage information is collected, such as a tracking of which websites you visit.

Tracking cookies are also considered spyware. They are used all over the Internet in useful and less useful places. Advertisement companies often set cookies whenever your browser loads a banner from them. In this way, the company gets notified about every site you visit that contains their ads.

Recently, many users have reported problems when logging onto the Internet. They are being redirected to others website as a result of their computers being infiltrated by spyware.

Microsoft offers a free spyware program for valid MS OS called Windows Defender.

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