What is a malware?

Question

My computer has just received two of them, what is it?

It also says 5 Adwares what is this?

Answer 1

Viruses and other harmful programs.

Answer 2

Malware is software designed to infiltrate or damage a computer system without the owner's informed consent. It is a portmanteau of the words "malicious" and "software". The expression is a general term used by computer professionals to mean a variety of forms of hostile, intrusive, or annoying software or program code.

Many normal computer users are however still unfamiliar with the term, and most never use it. Instead, "(computer) virus" is used in common parlance and often in the general media to describe all kinds of malware. Another term that has been recently coined for malware is badware, perhaps due to the anti-malware initiative Stopbadware or corruption of the term "malware".

Software is considered malware based on the perceived intent of the creator rather than any particular features. It includes computer viruses, worms, trojan horses, spyware, dishonest adware, and other malicious and unwanted software. In law, malware is sometimes known as a computer contaminant, for instance in the legal codes of California, West Virginia, and several other U.S. states.[1]

Malware should not be confused with defective software, that is, software which has a legitimate purpose but contains harmful bugs.
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You better use a Freeware adaware of Lavasoft

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Answer 3

Malware is software designed to infiltrate or damage a computer system without the owner's informed consent. It is a portmanteau of the words "malicious" and "software". The expression is a general term used by computer professionals to mean a variety of forms of hostile, intrusive, or annoying software or program code.

Answer 4

Computer viruses can do much damage. Computer viruses also live in a family of trojans worms spyware and the like known as Malware. Every malware has it's own way of working.
1: Worms
Computer worms using network travelling to access your computer. If your firewall and anti virus programs aren't up to date then you'll get it. As it uses networking you have no controll if it will reach you or not what you need to do is to make sure your internet firewall is up and running and your computer firewalls to and make sure if it does get though your router firewall use the block traffic buttton on Norton.
2:Spyware
Spyware can be just annoying by just non stop pop ups or dangerous by stealing information. Most spyware is bought to you by pop ups when you click on them and their offering free stuff like PS3 or Wii or the worlds greatest Xbox360 anyways you can rarely detect spyware unless you have a good anti virus/internet security program. Here are two ways to find if you have spyware.
Ok open up whatever internet program your using. In the address box type in a site you know doesn't exist if your bought to an advertising page you've got spyware! Another way of finding out is how many search bars you have now google and yahoo have their own but if you have more you've got spyware! These can be recieved in email, pop up or from a file you download you can spyware so easily that you must be careful.
3: Trojan horses.
These work like viruses. They travel though email, website or even just going to a certain website but one thing is that they do not use networking to travel (thank god) usally they just open a door for more viruses and malware to get in but sometimes they send personal data back to the maker. Removal of them is by using an anti virus program.
Viruses: Virus are caught in nearly everyway email,website,popups,networkin... (DEAR GOD NO!) almost everyway. They are the worst as they can be a mix of every malware or just have one or two missions. But the one thing you can be sure of is that they are the most dangerous. Most viruses need a human being to get into your computer but some can just do it on their own. You need a good firewall and a brillant internet security/ Anti virus the firewall to filter out networking viruses and anitvirus/internet security to destory viruses you get.

End:
To end my answer I'd like to say. Don't use free anti virus software they don't work use Norton it works the best oh and don't get infected get informed.

Answer 5

Let us take the easy one first. "Malware" is short for malicious software and is typically used as a catch-all term to refer to any software designed to cause damage to a single computer, server, or computer network, whether it's a virus, spyware, et al.

Answer 6

malicious software

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malware

Answer 7

it's something really bad, i suggest you get something to remove them or get someone that knows basic things about a computer to remove it