Is adware all that bad?

Spywareinfo.com, which publishes a weekly newsletter, has written an article asking the simple question. Is adware bad? The companies have mounted a massive campaign trying to say no, adware is fine, it's spyware that's bad.

We need to mount an offensive attacking adware makers and the crap they install on our PCs without our permission.

Spywareinfo.com writes:

We put a good effort into turning "spyware" into a dirty word. They have put ten times the effort into making "adware" a good word. They want everyone to think of adware as something acceptable. They want us to believe that adware is vastly different from spyware.

It is time to stick a pin into this argument and burst a few bubbles. It is time to stop pretending that adware is any better or more benign than spyware.

What is the real difference between a program you would call spyware and another that you would call adware? The truth of the matter is that there is not a whole lot of difference.

The spyware will monitor your activity and report that information to its maker. The adware will not. Otherwise, it might as well be the same program. Same unannounced arrival. Same pop-ups. Same drain on the system resources. Same annoyances.

What causes people to complain about these programs? Are they up in arms because some company might learn that they like yellow toasters and visit certain sites over and over? In some cases, yes - that is exactly why some people are angered. But that really is not what causes the overwhelming majority of complaints.

People notice that their computer takes twice as long to start up. They notice that new, mysterious toolbars appear in their browser. They notice the ads, which pop up relentlessly the entire time the computer is turned on. They notice that their home page has changed and they are unable to change it back.

People do not remember installing the software responsible for all of this. They have lost control of their own computer and they do not understand how it happened.

Maybe they saw some sort of disclosure, maybe not. Maybe the software is monitoring their activities, maybe it isn't. Everything from spyware to adware to browser hijackers fit this description. When it happens to you, you really do not care what you are supposed to call it. You just want it to stop.

Adware often is installed by web sites that exploit browser flaws. This happens all the time. How can a company claim to be legitimate if, time after time, they make payments to people who install their software through security holes?

Rootkits often are installed to hide the adware files. This is done to prevent you from finding them. Why go to all that effort to hide legitimate software? Why would they want to hide it, unless they know that people do not want it?

Adware frequently will put several files into memory, so that if one process is terminated, another will restart it. If certain files or registry entries are deleted or changed, they will be changed right back. That makes it extremely difficult to remove these adware programs. Why do all that, if the program is legitimate?

A computer, with adware installed, becomes a pop-up factory. Window after window after window pops up. They never stop. It does no good to close them, because that simply causes more to open. So many pop-up windows will open that the computer literally runs out of memory and crashes. I have seen it happen with my own eyes. This is legitimate software?

It is time to stop pretending that adware is any less of an annoyance than spyware. It is time to stop pretending that people dislike adware merely because it is serving ads. It is time to stop pretending that adware is better than spyware. It is time to stop pretending that there is any significant difference between the two.

I have one more fact for you. 56,000 people have created more than 325,000 individual topics on the SpywareInfo message board, most of them asking for help to remove some unwanted software. Very few of the programs we have helped them to remove performed any spying. Nearly all of them easily fall under the label of "adware".

Let us stop pretending that there is a valid reason to distinguish between adware and spyware. Except for that one little detail, the two are identical. No amount of money spent in a public relations campaign will ever change that.

The whole editorial can be found here:
Spyware Weekly Newsletter : Dec 10, 2005