Adware And Spyware

Is There A Difference Between Adware And Spyware?

The Adware industry has gone to great lengths to paint a difference between Adware-a legitimate ad-delivering program-and Spyware, an underhanded and sneaky ad-delivering program. The anti-malware community has a very different viewpoint on the matter.

The difference is an important one. If a program is Adware-that is, a valid and accepted program, that delivers ads without inconveniencing the user-then there's no reason to include that program in a malware scan. And if the sponsor of the scan receives money from adware business partners, then they might have a financial interest in keeping their spyware scanner from detecting the programs of their business partners.

Critics, however, have a different definition. If the program doesn't clearly and explicitly state what it's doing, then it's not legitimate, no matter what label the adware industry attaches to it.

According to the adware advocates, the difference between the two labels is whether or not the program actually "spies" on the user. If the program collects information and reports it back to the spyware server, then it's hard to deny the label.

For the anti-malware community, however, the distinction is a bit different. If the program acts in an underhanded manner-if it doesn't warn the user when it installs, for example, or if it makes unexpected changes to the user's system, like changing the home page-then it's not legitimate, no matter what label is applied to it. Many of the worst offenders in the malware community are programs that really don't spy on the user-but they do install silently, make changes to the system as they install, and are nearly impossible to detect or uninstall.

For those critical of spyware, the difference between adware and spyware is a marketing gimmick, designed to distract people from questioning the underhanded tactics of adware and spyware in general.