Dealing with  unwanted invasions  of your machine  

11. URL injectors. This software "injects" a given URL in place of certain URLs when you try to visit them in your browser. Usually, the injected URL is an affïliate link to the target URL. An affïliate link is a special link used to track the traffïc an affïliate (advertiser) has sent to the original website, so that the original website can pay commissions on any salës from that traffïc.

12. Adware. The least dangerous and most lucrative malware (lucrative for its distributors, that is). Adware displays ads on your computer. The Wikipedia entry on malware does not give adware its own category even though adware is commonly called malware. As Wikipedia notes, adware is often a subset of spyware. The implication is that if the user chooses to allow adware on his or her machine, it's not really malware, which is the defense that most adware companies take. In reality, however, the choice to install adware is usually a lëgal farce involving placing a mention of the adware somewhere in the installation materials, and often only in the licensing agreement, which hardly anyone reads.

Are you ready to take on this dirty dozen? Don't go it alone. Make sure you have at least one each of antivirus and antispyware.