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| reply to eburger68
Re: Informal Adware Risk Survey
said by eburger68  : I'm curious as to how you, the users of such anti-spyware prorgrams, perceive the potential risks or threat potentials inherent in these detections. Being fairly uninformed about spyware, I never heard of many of the items in your list. I purposely made no effort to learn about any of them prior to making my list. So what you are going to get from me is a list of my (typical oblivious computer user) impressions. I don't think it will be very useful to you but figured I'd throw my 2 cents in just in case you were looking for the general population's impressions, rather than any real information.
1. (most severe)
CoolWebSearch (HomeSearchAssistant)
2-11 (don't really know)
WhenU Save!
Download Accelerator Plus
ABetterInternet (Aurora)
180search Assistant
SearchMiracle/Elitebar
New.net
IBIS Websearch/Wintools
GAIN OfferCompanion
Hotbar
12. (least severe)
Tracking cookie (Doubleclick)
Weatherbug
I placed CoolWebSearch in the most severe category because I seem to remember that there was a specialized piece of software needed it to remove it from computers because a lot of regular anti-crapware software couldn't remove it. This could be wrong but its what I think I remember.
The majority, I placed in my I don't know category (in no particular order) because I have either heard of them (like New.net, Hotbar, and WhenU Save!) and couldn't remember if they were truly bad or were like the things getting downgraded in MSAS and maybe not really so bad. Or I hadn't heard of them at all.
I put Weatherbug in my least severe category because I used it in the past and while it had advertisements...I remember knowing that going in and figured that was the trade off in using the free piece of software. In other words, it was my own choice to install it, knowing about the ads ahead of time.
Finally, I always delete tracking cookies when they show up in my Ad-Aware scans but never really thought that they were harmful.
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