Viral Adware

How adware installs itself on your computer

If you have read the section on where adware comes from, then you will know that the primary avenues adware uses for travelling across the Internet are through freeware and shareware. The question is, how do you know what freeware and what shareware contain adware?

Honestly, this can be very tricky. According to various laws by the FCC, developers of software containing adware are required to inform users about it. The way users are usually informed are through agreements, where you have to click some sort of "Agree" button to download the software containing the adware. Unfortunately, the marjoity of people do not read these use agreements and just immediately click the "I Agree" button without knowing what they are really downloading. Then, by the time they see the adware on their system, they get aggravated and ponder as to where it came from.

While laws do require developers/distributors/etc. of adware-bundled software to notify their users, many people don't. Let's face it, even with all of the laws being developed, the Internet is a very large and anonymous place. While some people don't tell users about adware, others will just modify clean software and put adware into it, thus making it very difficult to detect.

What is important is when you want to download something and you see some form of use agreement, make sure to read it in its entirety so you know whether or not you will be installing adware on your computer.