Adware, or advertising-supported software, is any software package which automatically
renders advertisements in order to generate revenue for its author.
The advertisements may be in the user interface of the software or on a screen presented to
the user during the installation process.
The functions may be designed to analyze which Internet sites the user visits and to present
advertising pertinent to the types of goods or services featured there.
The term is sometimes used to refer to software that displays unwanted advertisements.
Advertising-supported software In legitimate software, the advertising functions
are integrated into or bundled with the program.
Adware is usually seen by the developer as a way to recover development costs, and in
some cases, it may allow the software to be provided to the user free of charge or at
a reduced price.
The income derived from presenting advertisements to the user may allow or motivate the developer
to continue to develop, maintain and upgrade the software product.
The use of advertising-supported software in business is becoming increasingly popular,
with a third of IT and business executives in a 2007 survey by McKinsey & Company planning
to be using ad-funded software within the following two years.
Advertisement funded software is also one of the Business models for open-source software.
In application software Some software is offered in both an advertising-supported
mode and a paid, advertisement-free mode.
The latter is usually available by an online purchase of a license or registration code
for the software that unlocks the mode, or the purchase and download of a separate version
of the software.
Some software authors offer advertising-supported versions of their software as an alternative
option to business organizations seeking to avoid paying large sums for software licenses,
funding the development of the software with higher fees for advertisers.
Examples of advertising-supported software include the Windows version of the Internet
telephony application Skype, and the Amazon Kindle 3 family of e-book readers, which has
versions called "Kindle with Special Offers" that display advertisements on the home page
and in sleep mode in exchange for substantially lower pricing.
In 2012, Microsoft and their advertising division, Microsoft Advertising, announced that Windows
8, the forthcoming major release of the Microsoft Windows operating system, would provide built-in
methods for software authors to use advertising support as a business model.
The idea had been considered since as early as 2005.
In software as a service Support by advertising is a popular business
model of software as a service on the Web.
Notable examples include the email service Gmail and other Google Apps products, and
the social network Facebook.
Microsoft has also adopted the advertising-supported model for many of its social software SaaS
offerings.
The Microsoft Office Live service was also available in an advertising-supported mode.
According to Federal Trade Commission staff’s view, there appears to be general agreement
that software should be considered "spyware” only if it is downloaded or installed on a
computer without the user’s knowledge and consent.
However, unresolved issues remain concerning how, what, and when consumers need to be told
about software installed on their computers for consent to be adequate.
For instance, distributors often disclose in an End User Licensing Agreement that there
is additional software bundled with primary software, but some panelists and commenters
did not view such disclosure as sufficient to infer consent to the installation of the
bundled software.
As malware The term adware is frequently used to describe
a form of malware, usually that which presents unwanted advertisements to the user of a computer.
The advertisements produced by adware are sometimes in the form of a pop-up.
When the term is used in this way, the severity of its implication varies.
While some sources rate adware only as an "irritant", others classify it as an "online
threat" or even rate it as seriously as computer viruses and trojans.
The precise definition of the term in this context also varies.
Adware that observes the computer user's activities without their consent and reports it to the
software's author is called spyware.
Programs have been developed to detect, quarantine, and remove advertisement-displaying malware,
including Ad-Aware, Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware, ADWCleaner, Spyware Doctor and Spybot - Search
& Destroy.
In addition, almost all commercial antivirus software currently detect adware and spyware,
or offer a separate spyware detection package.
See also Typhoid adware
malvertising Notes
References