The adage ” there is no free lunch” rings true on the internet even more than you can imagine. We are continually bombarded with opportunities to allow our personal privacy to be invaded. At our business Computer Doctor of Hampden, we see everyday the toll adware  and spyware takes on computer systems. If you are a casual web surfer you may not notice how your internet experience gets slowly modified as more of these programs get installed. Tool bar ad-ons are a prime example of how adware starts.

So what is going on? If we start at the top these programs expose you to advertising, specific ads from specific advertisers using an ad campaign tailored to this spyware program. If you find yourself noticing that your search results have changed, grab another computer and search for the same keywords. Your adware infected computer will bring up a ton of paid results and even the organic ones will be skewed. On an infected machine things usually start to worsen quickly. Another by-product we see @ Computer Doctor is what is termed a browser hijacker. The result of hijacking is that every search is redirected to specific pages, some of these will be loosely based on what you were searching for others will be a repository for all the nasty bits the net provides, clicking through this mess will ultimately infect your computer with more malicious software and your problems begin to snowball from there.

Here is a short video explaining more about adware. Thanks to Lana @ identitiytheftmanifesto.

The point we are trying to make is, read before you click! Freeware is not free and can often be a costly mistake. The freedom of the internet is what makes it the most valuable hub of information ever created, at the same time we need to be mindful that for every gem we find, we wade through more malicious crap that is becoming increasingly crafty, it invades our privacy, capture our information and expose us to more garbage… Questions? Drop us a line  [email protected]