Malware

An abbreviation of "malicious software," the term malware is used to describe any sort of harmfully or generally undesirable program that (usually) installs itself onto your computer without your knowledge or permission. As an umbrella term, malware encompasses these different "species" of nasty programs:

• Viruses - Malicious programs that are designed to render computers inoperable or unusable. Viruses usually sneak onto peoples' machines through e-mail attachments, downloaded programs parading as something else, or a fake P2P-traded file (music, movie, etc.) The possible severity of a virus infection depends on the virus: some merely change your AIM away message to something naughty/nasty and prevent you from changing it, while others deliberately corrupt system files or destroy saved data. Virus (and worm) infected computers are responsible for much of the spam that arrives in your mailbox every day, sending out hundreds (of thousands) of e-mails without the knowledge of the respective computers' owners. Just think, the cause of all that spam you hate might be... you.
  • Symptoms: Erratic behavior in general, broken anti-virus software, broken task manager, etc.
  • Removed with: McAfee Antivirus, Norton AntiVirus, AVG Anti-Virus (and others)

• Worms - Worms are very similar to viruses, except that they usually spread without any need for the user to click a link or download a file. Once a computer becomes infected with a worm, it attempts to spread its disease to any computers that interact with it. Worms are particularly dangerous in large networks (such as those owned by large colleges and universities...
  • Symptoms: Erratic behavior in general, broken anti-virus software, broken task manager, etc.
  • Removed with: McAfee Antivirus, Norton AntiVirus, AVG Anti-Virus (and others)

• Spyware - Spyware doesn't necessarily hurt your computer the way a virus would do. Instead, spyware gathers information about the user (which can include history of website's visited, passwords, and credit card numbers) and reports back to parts unknown. Spyware (and its brother adware) is the most common form of malware. Spyware usually sneaks onto computers without the user's knowledge, either through unscrupulous websites, packaged in with other (legitimate) software, or hidden inside attractive junk like toolbars and weather reporting programs.
  • Symptoms: Long bootup times, slow performance, lots of hard-drive activity
  • Removed with: Ad-Aware, Spybot - Search & Destroy, Windows Defender

• Adware - Spyware's little brother, adware, once it infects your machine, starts spawning pop-ups whenever you open a web browser? . These pop-ups are usually of a useless product/pyramic scheme/pornographic nature. Spyware and adware tend to hang out with each other.
  • Symptoms: Pop-ups appear on sites that aren't supposed to have them (such as Google)
  • Removed with: Ad-Aware, Spybot - Search & Destroy, Windows Defender

If you think you have some of these problems and want to get rid of them, visit our computer cleanout page.