What is Ad-Ware?

Ad-Ware is any software application in which advertising banners are displayed while the program is running. The authors of these applications include additional code that delivers the ads, which can be viewed through pop-up windows or through a bar that appears on a computer screen. Ad-Ware has 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 Spy-Ware and has prompted an outcry from computer security and privacy advocates.

Ad-Ware is used to occasionally display ads on your machine based on web sites you have visited or your interests as indicated by your browsing habits.   (Ad-Ware and Spy-Ware are similar enough that there are debates regarding the proper designation for many of the applications.)

On the Internet, Spy-Ware is programming that is put in someone's computer to secretly gather information about the user and relay it to advertisers or other interested parties. Spy-Ware can get in a computer as a software virus or as the result of installing a new program. Data collecting programs that are installed with the user's knowledge are not, properly speaking, Spy-Ware, if the user fully understands what data is being collected and with whom it is being shared.

Spy-Ware is a program installed on your computer, usually without your explicit knowledge, that transmits personal information to companies. The companies use this information in a number of ways including selling it to others, using it for marketing data, or tracking browsing habits. Most people would not choose to have Spy-Ware installed on their computers, however companies "piggyback" the programs with other popular software such as file sharing applications. Some programs allow you to choose if you want to install the Spy-Ware programs, but many simply install them and hide the fact that they do in the extraordinarily long End-User License Agreement (EULA) that the vast majority of people simply click "Accept" on and never read. Spy-Ware is the name which was given to software that - without the user of the program knowing that the software performs this kind of action - traces the user's usage of the internet and sends this information - again without the user knowing this is happening - to a computer ("Server") designated by the developer of the Spy-Ware software."By performing these actions, detailed user profiles may be collected - without the user's knowledge and approval - which then can be used for commercial or other purposes. By gathering and sending this information both resources on the user's computer as well as bandwidth on the Internet is abusively used, not to mention the breach of privacy such a user profile would be."

Spy-Ware and Ad-Ware programs can be found in many places.  Spy-Ware usually is installed along with other programs such as KaZaa or Morpheus.  Here is a short list of some common Spy-Ware programs.

• Gator

• Bargain Buddy

• BDE

• Bonsai Buddy

NOTE : Uninstalling Ad-Ware/Spy-Ware can cause some programs to stop working, such as KaZaa. If you are running KaZaa and want to keep it on your computer, you should open KaZaa so that it is running in the task bar (you'll be able to see the KaZaa icon near the clock on the bottom right of your screen). Run these programs and then highlight all items that you want to remove from your computer and click next. The program will prompt you to delete the items (as shown below), but will be unsuccessful at deleting the items that KaZaa needs to run. When it prompts to delete the items after rebooting, choose "no" and KaZaa will continue working. If you decide that you no longer want to run KaZaa, you should uninstall it before removing these  Ad-Ware /Spy-Ware components, because removing these components will prevent KaZaa from uninstalling successfully. If you have already deleted these items and now cannot uninstall Kazaa, you need to reinstall it, and then it will uninstall successfully.

Kazaa
BearShare
AudioGalaxy