Home > Adware
Adware or advertising-supported software is any software application in which advertisements are displayed while the program is running. These applications include additional code that displays the ads in pop-up windows or through a bar that appears on a computer screen. Adware helps recover programming development costs, and helps to hold down the price of the application for the user (even making it free of charge)and, of course, it can give programmers a profit, which helps to motivate them to write, maintain, and upgrade valuable software. Some adware is also shareware, as such it may be used as term of distinction used to to differentiate between types of shareware software. What differentiates adware from other shareware is that it is primarily advertising supported. Users may also be given the option to pay for a "registered" or "licensed" copy, which typically does away with the advertisements. Other types of shareware include demoware, nagware, crippleware, freeware, and even spyware.
Some adware programs have been criticized for occasionally including code that tracks a user's personal information and passes it on to third parties, without the user's authorization or knowledge. This practice has been dubbed spyware and has prompted an outcry from computer security and privacy advocates, including the Electronic Privacy Information CenterElectronic Privacy Information Center or EPIC is a public interest research group in Washington D. It was established in 1994 to focus public attention on emerging civil liberties issues and to protect privacy, the First Amendment, and constitutional valu [1]. Other adware programs do not track a user's personal information.
A number of software applications are available to help computer users search for and modify adware programs to block the presentation of advertisements and to remove spyware modules. To avoid a backlash, as with the advertising industry in general, creators of adware must balance their attempts to generate revenue with users' desire to be left alone.
See also: spyware, malwareMalware (a portmanteau of "malicious software") is any software developed for the purpose of doing harm to a computer system. Malware can be classified based on how it is executed, how it spreads, and/or what it does. The classification is not perfect, ho
1 Examples of Shareware that contains adware
- EudoraEudora is a widely used email client for the Microsoft Windows and Macintosh operating systems. It also supports several palmtop computing platforms, including Newton and the Palm OS. It was named after Eudora Welty, who was flattered by the reference. Email clientAn email client (or MUA as in mail user agent is a computer program that is used to read and send email. Protocols supported by email clients include POP3 and IMAP. IMAP and the updated IMAP4 are optimized for storage of email on the server, while the POP
- Opera Web browserA web browser is a software package that enables a user to display and interact with documents hosted by web servers. Popular browsers include Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. A browser is the most commonly used kind of user agent. The lar
- DivX Video codec
- Kazaa Filesharing program, also contains spyware
- iMesh Filesharing program, also contains spyware
- Grokster Filesharing program, contains spyware that may seriously impact performance of Microsoft Windows.
