Advertising-supported software, also known as adware, is a type of software that was created specifically to provide online ads in the software interface.
It penetrates your PC most of the time during the installation process. There are usually two types of revenue that can be generated here. One of them is for pay per click, in case the customer clicks, and one for actually displaying the ad.
If the software is legitimate, most of the time the advertising functions will be integrated right in the program. For a lot of developers displaying ads is one of the best ways to generate revenue and get paid for their work, especially if the software is provided free of charge. Unfortunately, adware is becoming more and more popular because most people want apps for free, and adding in this kind of stuff is pretty much mandatory.
Is adware related to malware?
A lot of people also use the term adware to describe malware that shows ads on the computer. Most of the time these types of malware will arrive in the form of windows that can’t be closed or a popup. Unfortunately, these are not a pleasure to see on a computer, in fact, they are extremely problematic, and you have to address the problem the best way that you can.
Some adware is not very damaging, but you can also find adware that ends up an online threat pretty much like trojans or computer viruses. Even if most adware operates legally, there are some illegal types of adware too and those are the very dangerous ones. If you don’t want to see ads in your content, then making sure that you tackle this correctly and with the right approach will pay off very well. That doesn’t mean it will be easy to do that, but the payoff alone can be quite impressive in the end.
There are some types of adware that end up disabling virus protection and anti-malware software. Thankfully there are some technical remedies. You may notice adware on laptop and desktop computers but also on Android And Apple devices.
How do you get infected with Adware?
There are 2 methods that adware may sneak into the system. Most of the time what you do is you download a program that’s free and that program will install adware on your system without asking. The developer gets paid, but you don’t really have a choice other than seeing the ads. But as we said, this mostly appears in free software, so they have to get paid somehow.
Then you have the second method which involves visiting a website that’s infected with adware and it will infect your system too. These sites take advantage of browser vulnerabilities in order to infect your computer.
Both situations are not ok for most of us, so we have to tackle them the best way that we can. That doesn’t mean it will be a simple thing to do, but the payoff alone will be tricky since there are so many challenges involved with this type of stuff.
Removing adware
There are multiple things you can do in order to at least try and solve this issue. The more you leave it on your system, the harder it will be to use your computer. So, what you want to do is to find a good and reliable way to solve the problem adequately.
A good idea would be to uninstall the program that has adware. If the adware is contained in that program, removing it should eliminate all signs of pop-ups and unwanted advertising. Do keep in mind that this won’t really work every time, so you have to figure out what approach works for you.
Malwarebytes Anti-Malware is a great solution that you can use in this situation. It does a very good job of identifying all kinds of malware. The idea is to install this software, and after you do that you will notice that you can start a scan. Initiate the scan and wait until the process is completed. It totally works, and it will automatically identify any signs of unwanted malware without a problem. It’s a very reliable and good tool that you can use all the time. If there are threats, these will be sent to quarantine and there you can select whether you want to delete them or not.
Another good tool that you can use is Freshmac for Mac computers. You have to install it and then initiate a scan. It will find adware in your browser and installation folders most of the time. Initiate the scan and then wait for it to complete. You will have a report with all the threats and problems that appeared here.
Tech-savvy users may try and remove adware manually. There many websites that offer manual removal guides, one of them is sureshotsoftware.com
We recommend you avoid entering random sites unless you know they are secure. It also makes sense to have an anti-malware solution like Malwarebytes installed, as that will help protect your computer a lot better than before. If you do have adware and you want to remove it from the computer, then using any of the tools here will help quite a lot. Make sure that you use these tools regularly to avoid any kind of malware on the computer.
