I think the Google searchbar, which is very popular, installs spyware. Almost anything that they offer you for "free" has strings attached, they are giving you the software in exchange for being able to track your info.

Not all the adware is malicious (I guess depending on how you look at it). Stuff like the Google bar never causes any problems on my machine... I was using it for quite a while but then decided to be more conservative with my machine so got rid of it.

Some of course are monsters that really effect the use of your machine... slowing it down and putting up popups everywhere... and of course some can be downright viruses designed to mess up your machine.

The biggest problem with ALL of them is the issue of privacy. The most basic purpose of spyware is to track what kind of sites you visit and what kind of purchases you make. So when you get ads they are more likely to be something you are interested in. That's how the ads at the bottom of these pages work (note that they are provided by Google) now these aren't "spyware" because they don't search your machine or your habits, they just try to make recommendations based on things mentioned on that page. But the spyware on your computer can be intended for the same purpose.

For a lot of people it really bugs them that there is an invasion of privacy issue there. It's nobody's business what they are buying. It doesn't bother me personally, so I leave my cookies active on Amazon.com for instance because I like the suggestions it makes for me. But although it doesn't bother me, I really have to agree that if it does bother you, you should be able to avoid it. Worst for me is that most people have no idea that this is even happening. If someone is tracking your purchases, you should know about it, and not in the fine print of the website. (Amazon does say that it makes recommendations based on purchases you have made in the past... that is clear on every page where they recommend something, so I think that is the upfront way to do it).

A lot of people don't realize that supermarkets do that too. If you have any sort of discount card for your supermarket, they didn't give that to you out of the goodness of their heart ya know . They keep track of your purchases... for the most part I don't think they are interested in what individuals are buying but more to study trends in groups of buyers... maybe people in a certain zip code purchase a lot of baby products so the stores in that area might want to carry more merchandise for parents. They also in a lot of stores give you coupons that print out right at the checkout... a lot of times it is obvious that it is related to something you just purchased, but sometimes they are coupons based on trends of things that you have purchased in the past.

You can look at this really as a way for the store to serve you better, or you can look at it as an invasion of privacy. As I said, I don't mind it, but I am cautious and try to be aware. (I also get very little spam in my email without the help of a spam blocker... I do sign up for stuff on websites but I am very conservative about that).

Also personally, I don't tend to believe there is any big conspiracy to collect all our data. But it can be scary to think of the possibilities.

This is not completely new.... manufacturer's have people fill out warrantee cards forever as far back as I can remember. The point of these is to collect data (they have to honor the warrantee on your product whether you send in the card or not). Some people may remember a HUGE stink about Windows 95 or 98 because during the registration process it scanned the specs of your system and sent it back to Microsoft. I think they really wanted to be able to track the kinds of machines the software was being used on but when people found out they freaked out. I think, once again, the biggest problem was that it was doing so without people knowing about it. MS still does that but they make it very clear during the process that they want to send information, they offer you a check box in case you don't want to send your data, and it is set not to send the data by default. That pretty much pleased everyone. I don't worry too much about MS software anymore because I think they learned their lesson and are always going to make it clear now when something might be a matter of privacy.

Sept like I started this with... although not all adware is necessarily malicious, I don't think there's any harm in being very conservative, so I think it was a good idea to just scan and wipe everything clean. There certainly isn't any need for any of it, if any of it was serving any useful purpose to you, you can always put that back in at a later date if you decide you want to.

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