The talk also explained the business structure of adware bundling. The tactics included the perils of simply clicking the close window during the setup (this would still run the install in many cases), adware attempting to get competing adware uninstalled by downloading antivirus programs that would only detect the competition, and real-time run-time process battles where competing software attempted to be the default option on the computer. The adware wars first piqued my interest when I came across a DEFCON 18 talk called “ My Life as a Spyware Developer,” which described adware tactics in the mid-2000s in detail. (Examples include fraudulent or illegally obtained pharmaceutical drugs where people’s lives were potentially at stake.) So it’s unlikely the company could develop a system for detecting lesser transgressions (comparatively speaking) like adware or malware.Ĭonor Myhrvold Homepage, Default Search Provider Wars In the past, Google has approved ads knowing that what is being offered is not legitimate. Google could prevent these results from appearing by suspending the accounts of known offenders or by better screening in advance of approving ad campaigns, but this could decrease the tens of billions of dollars Google receives in advertising revenue ( some $42 billion in 2012). I didn't notice a higher ratio of ads from Google containing adware compared to the regular search results, but there were lots of shady looking landing pages that led to adware downloads. The other overall troubling trend was that some of the adware I downloaded came from Google’s sponsored results, AdWords. Adware made my computer slow to run and lethargic. Performance-wise, simple tasks like opening a Firefox browser window took minutes instead of seconds. Even after that, traces would remain forever on your computer unless you followed specialized steps and cleanup tools. It would take the digital equivalent of a serious workout program to stop adware from functioning. The Internet adware situation reminds me of the consumption cliché, “a minute on your lips, forever on your hips." After his month-long fast food diet finished, it took Spurlock more than a year to lose those last few fast food pounds gained.Īdware only took a minute or two for me to download and install, but many more programs were offered through bundling, and the uninstall helpers were unchecked by default (in all but one case). It's similar to what a fast-food-only diet did for Spurlock when offered extra food. True to the experiment's inspiration, I found that continually seeking this kind of easy entertainment on the Web had a long-term deleterious effect on how my computer ran due to software bundling. In my searches I looked for quick, free entertainment-the above-mentioned fast food diet of the Web.
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