Specifically, Adware.
Adware takes many forms. Generally, adware is software used specifically and exclusively to display adverts, in whatever form, to the user. Many free programs these days include at least one adware program as standard - after all, the software's makers sure aren't making money by giving their software away for free, so they may as well try and get some comission right? it's only fair, they're giving you software for free, you gotta expect to pay SOME kinda price, even if it's not actually money. Hell, not having to actualyl pay money is better than paying money, yeah?
Well, that all depends on the free software. These days there's also alot of derivative, sometimes inferior, software around that is actually available in equivalent (or better) form, but without any adware.
But that's a whole other issue to what I want to draw your attention to. See, the problem with the whole concept of adware (kinda like advertising in general) is that it's inevitable you'll get some companies trying it on, as in, trying to sneak adware past those of us who've got the PC paranoia levels ramped up a bit. As you may have read previously, if by some miracle my fevered typings caught your eye, I'm currently working in It support at a secondary school. Just over the last week, a whole load of adware suddenly appeared on two Windows 2000 machines in our staffroom.
Now, I'm well aware that the Windows family of OSes ain't exactly renowned for great security. However, these machines had been given the once over by both Spybot: Search & Destory, and Lavasoft Adware, two top-class pieces of entirely free (yeah, even adware-free) adware-busting software. I'd already begun setting up our logon scripts to check for some particulary persistent and popular adware that had been found earlier on most of the school's machines (and subsequently removed). The account priveleges for both the student and staff profiles are locked down quite tightly, too. Yet at least three major classes of adware - and I've taken to calling them classes because they usually consist of more than one actual component and you can often find random bits from various classes in other classes - within a couple of hours had wormed their way onto one machine, and made it nearly unusable thanks to the excessive numbers of stupid popups. A little while later, there were some traces of the same adware on the other windows 2000 machine in the staff room, but somehow it was a little more immune.
Article comments
1 - visualsimplicity
Yeah, that Virtual Bouncer is a nasty one. I like how it warns you about how your computer is infected with Adwares and you should register it. Yeah right.
Anyway, I've always wondered about the effectiveness of this adware (and the spam) tactic. I mean, who in their right minds would actually buy something from these things, but I guess people do, otherwise it wouldn't be such a prevalent way of advertising. Then again, in the case of the adwares, it often cripples the machine so badly that you probably couldn't even surt to the site to buy whatever product they're advertising.
2 - jadester
it just shows the unthinknig nature of many advertisers. Also, I suspect (in fact, I know) that with some adware stuff, the company(ies)/product(s) being advertised are not directly responsible - as in, they have some kind of affiliate scheme, so some wiseass goes and makes an adware program with the hope of gaining some comission (or even just hits, as some companies are still prepared to buy raw hits rather than real potential customers)