Microsoft security software blocks software that includes adware

Software developers that include adware in their software violating Microsoft's new adware policy, will see their software blocked after the July 1st 2014. In a blog,  posted in April this year, Microsoft already announced its new approach which comes in effect next week.

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Adware is additional software bundled with applications you install. Some variants are designed to show advertisements in the installed software, others change your default browser startpage, search engine or will show popups. It's a common annoyance for computer users and adware is often accidently installed by unaware users. Microsoft now urges software developers to make it easy to close ads, to clearly identify the source of the ads and make it easy to uninstall the adware.

The company makes a distinction between software that only shows ads in its own windows or software that shows ads outside it's own borders. The company states on it's blog, "Microsoft only considers classifying a program as adware if it produces notifications promoting goods or services in programs other than itself. If the program shows advertisements within its own borders it will not be assessed any further."

It clearly doesn't want to ruin the income of legitimate developers, as the company adds,  "Many programs use advertising as a form of payment for the program and that is also an acceptable practice. We are more concerned with the advertising that interferes with our customer’s Windows experience without giving them choice and control over it."

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Previously Microsoft's security products only warned users and offered them the option to block the adware, but by default the adware wasn't blocked. This will change, developers that continue to violate the new adware policy after the 1st of July will see their software blocked. Microsoft writes, "With our updated objective criteria, this is going to change. Now, when one of our products detects adware it will immediately stop the program and the user will be notified. The user then then has the ability to restore the program if they wish.

Well known adware includes OpenCandy, Conduit and AwesomeHP, all of them have been the subject of many forum threads of users asking help in getting rid of the adware.

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