Adware

Total Adware parasites in our DB: 624
Adware added today: 0

WHAT IS ADWARE?

Adware is any computer program that displays advertisements while the application is running. Advertisements appear in a web browser, pop-up windows, special toolbars or within the host program. Adware also can gather information about user’s habits and interests and send it out through a background Internet connection. Such behavior allows adware vendors to deliver targeted advertisements to the More...end user and collect general statistics.

Adware is divided into parasitical and legitimate applications. Illegal advertising programs are very similar to spyware parasites and often have some of their functions. They can be installed without explicit user consent and work all the time a computer is on. However, they are less dangerous, because most of such parasites are primarily intended to collect user’s personal information for marketing and advertising, but not for criminal purposes.

Legitimate adware applications are harmless. They do not track user activity or record any vital information about the user and use an Internet connection only to receive advertisements. Lots of reputable advertising-supported products, such as Opera web browser or Eudora mail client, fall into this category. Vendors of these products use advertising as a legal revenue model that allows to distribute high-quality commercial software for free. Navigate to adware parasites

Newest Adware

EoRezo

February 2nd, 2012
EoRezo is unwanted application that was included to the latest virus analysis report. Named as adware, it's installed without users' knowledge or consent and additionally set to create and drop eorezo. exe, SoftwareUpdateHP. More...

"Internal Conflict Alert" Pop up

February 1st, 2012
"Internal Conflict Alert" Pop up is a fallacious security alert form fake spyware remover called ANG Antivirus 09. The "Internal Conflict Alert" Pop up text is written below: "Internal conflict alert! ANG AntiVirus has detected internal software conflict. Some application endeavours to access your system kernel. More...

ALOT toolbar

February 1st, 2012
ALOT Toolbar should be categorized as unwanted application, adware, that returns modified results filled with various commercials and pop-up messages. It will also initiate annoying redirections to websites that have nothing to do with real results you normally get from your search engine. The most common way to get this program, presented as Browser Helper Object in most if the cases, is manual installation or together with other applications you can get on insecure websites. More...

DATABASE OF Adware PARASITES

# | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z
  • Keylog 95 July 13th, 2004 No Comments
    Windows 95 version of keylogwn.exe. From the publisher: 'virtually Identical except that it records the strokes into a...
  • "486 Privacy Violations Found" Popup May 4th, 2009 No Comments
    "486 Privacy Violations Found" Popup is a bogus security warning generated by rogue anti-spyware application called PC P...
  • "9 Spyware Found" Popup June 8th, 2009 No Comments
    "9 Spyware Found" Popup is a fake security alert generated by rogue anti-spyware application called WinBlueSoft. The fak...
  • "Fatal Error!" pop up is a phony alert notice from rogue anti-spyware WinCoDecPRO. It claims that media system is corru...
  • "Firewall Warning" Pop up April 8th, 2009 No Comments
    "Firewall Warning" Pop up is a false security warning generated by rogue anti-spyware WinPC Antivirus. This "Firewall Wa...
  • "Google has detected?€¦" web page April 1st, 2009 No Comments
    "Google has detected…" web page is a fake notification generated by rogue anti-spyware called System Protector. Mainly...
  • "Internal Conflict Alert" Pop up is a fallacious security alert form fake spyware remover called ANG Antivirus 09. The "...
  • "Internet Connection Protection" Popup April 16th, 2009 No Comments
    "Internet Connection Protection" Popup is a bogus alert produced by rogue anti-spyware Antivirus'09. "Internet Connectio...
  • "Latest Updates Available" Pop up March 4th, 2009 No Comments
    "Latest Updates Available" Pop up is a fake alert notification from rogue anti-spyware application ANG Antivirus 09. The...
  • "Media Codec Has Been Destroyed" Pop up March 6th, 2009 No Comments
    "Media Codec Has Been Destroyed" pop up is a fake security notification from rogue anti-spywareWinCoDecPRO. This fake po...
  • "Mtn6.com-com.ws" pop up March 6th, 2009 No Comments
    "Mtn6.com-com.ws" pop up is repetitious and phony advertisement window that promotes various noxious websites. This pop-...
  • "New database update is available" Pop up October 25th, 2011 No Comments
    "New database update is available" Pop up is a fallacious security alert generated by fake spyware remover called Total ...
  • "Privacy Violation Alert!" pop up September 17th, 2009 No Comments
    "Privacy Violation Alert!" pop up is a fake alert notification generated by rogue anti-spyware application called Total ...
  • "Rapid Antivirus Firewall Alert" is a false alert generated by rogue anti-spyware Rapid Antivirus. Rapid Antivirus Firew...
  • "Recommendations" Pop up April 20th, 2009 No Comments
    "Recommendations" Pop up is a false security alert generated by rogue anti-spyware called WiniBlueSoft. "Recommendations...
  • "System Alert: Virus Chin09.Win?€? March 3rd, 2010 No Comments
    Pay your attention to the alert titled "System Alert: Virus Chin09.Win” because it announces the virus. No, your compu...
  • "System Files Modification Alert!" pop up March 23rd, 2009 No Comments
    "System Files Modification Alert!" pop up is another fallacious security alert produced by fake spyware remover Total Se...
  • "System Protector - Threats Detected" Pop up is a fake security warning from rogue anti-spyware application called Syste...
  • "System Protector" Pop up April 1st, 2009 No Comments
    "System Protector" Pop up is a false security notification produced by rogue anti-spyware System Protector. The "System ...
  • "System Warning" Pop up April 1st, 2009 No Comments
    "System Warning" Pop up is a fake system security alert from rogue anti-spyware application System Protector. The "Syste...
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WAYS OF INFECTION

Adware parasites differ from regular viruses. They do not spread by themselves and usually must be installed as any other software with or without user content. There are three major ways unsolicited adware program can get into the system.

1. Some adware vendors deceive the user by presenting a particular adware as a useful tool, for example, a powerful web search service or fast download manager. Users download and install such programs. However, practically all of them appear to be either completely useless or ineffective. Although in most cases users can uninstall these products, main adware components may stay in the system and remain fully functional.
2. Lots of free, advertising-supported or shareware products such as Kazaa or Exeem are bundled with small add-ons needed by the host program to work properly. These add-ons actually are third-party spyware parasites or adware components. Uninstalling the host application not always removes bundled adware. This distribution method is most common for widely spread parasites.
3. Some illegal advertising applications can get into the system using Internet Explorer ActiveX controls or exploiting certain web browser vulnerabilities. Their vendors run insecure web sites filled with malicious code or distribute unsafe advertising pop-ups. Whenever the user visits such a site or clicks on such a pop-up, harmful scripts instantly install a parasite. The user cannot notice anything suspicious, as a threat does not display any setup wizards, dialogs or warnings.

It is known some dangerous adware parasites often can be dropped by specific spyware, worms or trojans. Adware affects mostly computers running Microsoft Windows operating system. However, reputable advertising-supported software can be also found on other popular platforms.

WHAT ADWARE DOES?

- Continuously serves commercial advertisements and displays pop-ups.
- Installs advertising toolbars, additional adware programs or undesirable third-party software.
- Creates numerous links to advertising resources, places desktop shortcuts to marketing sites, adds bookmarks to the web browser’s Favorites list.
- Tracks user’s web browsing habits, gathers information about user’s interests, records addresses of visited web sites, logs taken actions and sends some or all collected data to a remote server.
- Degrades overall system performance. Some adware parasites are badly programmed, they waste too much computer resources and cause software instability.
- Updates itself via the Internet and often does not provide the complete uninstall feature.

ADWARE EXAMPLES

There are plenty of different adware parasites. The following examples illustrate typical adware behavior.

BargainBuddy is an example of a typical adware parasite. Few years ago this threat and its variants were installed on thousands of computers around the world. BargainBuddy isn’t very dangerous, as it is initially designed to display advertisements and pop-ups. However, it also doesn’t hesitate to log addresses of visited web sites or record keywords the user enters into various online search fields. BargainBuddy adware silently updates itself through a background Internet connection. Such function may cause serious security issues. Furthermore, the parasite attempts to obstruct its removal. Its uninstaller leaves main adware components in the system, so that the threat can be automatically reinstalled later without user knowledge.

Prevalent GAIN adware by its functionality is very similar to BargainBuddy. It displays advertisements, collects information about the user and sends it to home servers. GAIN is also known for background downloads of unsolicited arbitrary programs and system instability issues caused by some of them. Users who have GAIN installed on their computers often complain about decreasing system performance and constantly appearing new processes.

nCase is yet another infamous adware parasite. It displays large amount of undesirable advertisements and pop-ups and collects information about a computer and user’s browsing habits. However, these are the most harmless nCase functions. The parasite also captures user’s e-mail messages, steals identity data, downloads and runs arbitrary code and causes multiple system stability problems. nCase uninstaller leaves main adware components in the system, so the threat can be fully reinstalled without user consent.

Completely different adware is WeatherBug. It is a legal advertising-supported program that provides weather forecasts and other similar information. It displays built-in advertisements only while the program itself is running. This adware doesn’t violate user privacy, doesn’t affect system performance or overall security level. WeatherBug can be easily uninstalled. No suspicious components stay in the system.

HOW TO REMOVE ADWARE?

As it was said above adware parasites are quite similar to spyware threats and therefore cannot be removed with the help of popular antivirus products. To remove them special anti-spyware tools (spyware removers) should be used. These programs scan the system in similar way as antivirus software. However, they have special parasite signature databases, which allow them to detect and eliminate most spyware and adware threats. Powerful spyware removers include real-time monitors that prevent the installation of known risks and unauthorized system modification.The most effective and popular anti-spyware programs are Spyware Doctor, Microsoft AntiSpyware Beta, Spybot - Search & Destroy, Ad-Aware SE, SpyHunter, eTrust PestPatrol.

In some cases even a spyware remover can fail to get rid of a particular parasite. That is why there are Internet resources such as 2-Spyware.com, which provide manual spyware and adware removal instructions. These instructions allow the user to manually delete all the files, directories, registry entries and other objects that belong to a parasite. However, manual removal requires fair system knowledge and therefore can be a quite difficult task for novices.

Not all adware programs (even if they track some personal information) are bad and needed to remove immediately.

Additional resources related to Adware:

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