Malware Freeware

Freeware is great. If you don’t know what freeware is and you’re planning to spend some time on the Internet, you’ll soon learn. Essentially, freeware is a computer software program you can find online that you can download and use for free.

Why Use Freeware?

As opposed to computer-crushing malware, freeware can actually improve your computing experience. Good freeware can provide you with fun games, helpful organization programs, and other functions that you might normally go out and buy software to get. Freeware is often created by competent, efficient programmers, so it really can be quite useful.

Why Do Programmers Create Freeware?

Although many people understand the insidious reasons why someone would create malware, freeware is another story. However, there are benefits to the programmer for creating freeware. For one, happy users may donate money to the programmer or his company. For another, it gets the programmer’s name out there on the web. Moreover, someone may use the freeware to create something even more beneficial, both for the programmer and others.

Freeware Malware Connection

Unfortunately, there is one more reason why someone might create freeware. The programmer may create the freeware as a malware delivery system, or some other party may use the freeware for this purpose. Malware is any software that gets onto your computer that has malicious intent. This can mean anything from adware that creates unwanted pop-up ads on your screen to a spyware program that collects your personal identifying information and sends it to someone who can use it to perpetrate identity theft. Clearly malware is something that you do not want on your computer.

The biggest problem perpetrators of malware have is how to get it onto your computer. This is what makes using freeware so insidious. You are downloading a program that you think will be free and useful, and before you know it malicious code is infecting your computer. Freeware is often innocent. However, even if it’s just a small bit of code promoting the programmer’s website, or sending demographic information back to the programmer for marketing purposes, you will often find some malware mixed in with your freeware.

Resolving Freeware Malware Issues

Does this mean that you should give up on using or downloading freeware? Not necessarily. Certainly if you’re concerned about how downloading something will affect your computer, you should err on the side of caution. However, rather than get rid of freeware altogether, you can sign up for a program like CyberDefender for your computer.

CyberDefender is designed to identify and eliminate threats like spyware and viruses before they work their way into your computer system. That is the whole idea behind CyberDefender’s Early Detection Center. The right anti-virus/anti-spam software can scan your system for problematic software, isolate it, and eliminate it. It can then stay vigilant to new threats so that it can block them or eliminate them as soon as they enter your computer’s world. So don’t give up on freeware, but protect yourself with CyberDefender too.