Spyware and Adware
During your journeys on the "information superhighway" you may unintentionally pick up a "hitch-hiker" program known as "spyware" or "adware". These programs work in the background gathering data about places on the web that you visit. Later, they send this information about your tendencies to their home websites. This can then be sold to spammers, cause pop-up ads to appear, or be sold to telemarketers. Remarkably, this type of invasion of privacy is NOT illegal!
Not only can this result in more junk email, but it can rob performance from your computer and slow your Internet connection speed. To combat this, several programs have been created to find and remove these hidden parasites. Some of them are free, some have a free trial period, and others charge for their products.
Some freeware (no-cost) options are from Spybot and Malwarebytes. Both these products are free and can be updated as necessary from their makers' web sites.
As you can see, removal of spyware / adware is important for your privacy and computer performance. For further information on this topic, please feel free to contact us.
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