Whats the difference between a virus, spyware, malware, and adware?
In the past we used to call everything a virus, however now days we have more precise names to further categorize them. Below I will show you the difference between a virus, spyware, malware, and adware.
What is Malware? Malware is a software designed to infiltrate a computer without the owner being informed. This is a common computer virus and computer worm.
Computer virus is used for a program that has some infected executable software. So when you run this executable software , it spreads to other executable software. As for computer worm, this is automatically transmitted over a network to infect other computers. There are two ways that this software can be installed and that it can be accidentally installed by a computer user or it can move into the computer through various sources.
What is Spyware? Spyware is type of malware installed on computer to do the job of monitoring or in simple terms this gathers information in little bits at a time about the users without their knowledge.
Apart from monitoring, this software can collect various personal information, such as internet surfing habits and the sites that has been visited by the user. This is how an individuals informations are hacked and private accounts such as bank account details etc are obtained. This common type of Spyware is used as a Key logger and are installed just for secretly monitoring other users by the owner of a shared, corporate or public computer.
What is Adware? Adware is a software designed to automatically play, display and download advertisement to a computer after a software has been installed or while an application is running. This software is primarily advertised support meaning you can pay for a registered and licensed copy or download it for free. Some of the sources where Adware is used are Windows Live messenger and Yahoo messenger.
What is a Virus? A virus is a small program designed to copy itself and infect any computer, delete your information and even crash your hard disk. This can travel from one computer to another through an internet connection, disc with infected virus or through USB flash drive containing the virus. Despite all this, internet is the most common point for entry of any type of virus. Some symptoms are email's being automatically sent when you don't send it, or you are told to download a program to fix a virus indicating you have a virus. Note: some virus do nothing beyond reproducing themselves so end users are to be aware of such viruses that exist in this world wide web.
