Posts Tagged ‘Spyware’

The Differences Between Spyware And Adware

Wednesday, December 19th, 2007

So many people will use the term spyware and adware together as if they are exactly the same thing. However, the thing that people need to know is that sure, they are both invading your privacy in some ways but what you may not already know is that their intents are much different in several different ways.

Spyware is much worse than adware because it’s main intents are truly done in a malicious manner. Spyware is trying to get your personal information such as, your banking account numbers, passwords to your emails or other members only websites, possibly your credit card account numbers, along with your social security numbers, where in fact it can just steal your identity, a small piece at a time, without you knowing anything about it. It is invisible and has the ability to not only damage your computer system and it’s performance but worse than that, it can also create many unwanted heartaches in your life.

Adware is not normally invisible like spyware, it creates itself in such ways as pop up advertisements. These advertisements may be trying to sell you something and when doing so you will then give it personal information it may need, allowing it the ability to give this information to many manufacturers trying to sell you their products. Most of the time adware will ask you to download something and ofcourse it will be offered to you, free of charge. Another little trick up it’s sleave in getting what it wants from you, with your permission. How clever is that? Using firewalls will indeed help prevent a lot of this from occurring. You will find that there are several different firewalls available for your needs. Your firewall will give you an advanced warning when it figures out that this sort of thing is happening, allowing you the opportunity to stop it.

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Spyware - Is somebody watching you?

Sunday, October 21st, 2007

Spyware is computer software that is installed stealthily on a personal computer to intercept or take partial control over the user’s interaction with the computer, without the user’s knowledge or consent.

Unlike a computer virus, spyware does not directly spread in the manner of a worm. Generally, an infected system does not attempt to transmit the infection to other computers; the issue is contained to your local system.

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