What’s Spyware or Adware?
Spyware is a type of software that sends information from your computer to other sources, from the websites your browse to potentially information you type on the keyboard, such as passwords and credit card numbers. For this reason, spyware jeopardizes the security of your machine. Adware is a type of software that opens pop-up ads on your computer when you browse or tries to get you to go to different sites. Both of these types of software can be downloaded, both intentionally or unintentionally, when you browse the internet. Spyware/Adware known to have problems with Blackboard include: Kazaa, Internet Optimizer, Starware, and Ask Jeeves. You should not intentionally download or install any of these applications. In any case, all computer users should download and install an adware or spyware remover, and regularly update and run it to remove these types of software from your machine. Spybot, a free download from http://www.safer-networking.org is a very good product. AdAware, which
