Every day, millions of people go online and go to a familiar website, just to get an advertisement pop-up that disrupts their online experience.
Ads are a way of life for many websites to generate profit from viewers visiting their website and, when clicked, these ads can take a person to another website, usually for their product.
While annoying and harmless when used as intended, issues in this system start to happen when the intentions of an “advertiser” go beyond just advertisement.
There are malicious people on the Internet utilizing advertisements to leave our computers and information vulnerable for theft and abuse.
Some advertisements will come in as scareware trying to pressure people into calling their number or download a harmful program.
Scareware is a common pop-up that thousands have fallen victim to – giving up Social Security numbers or access to bank accounts, allowing malicious connections to their computers, leaving networks vulnerable and infected, and more.
Some advertisements, if not filtered by a website correctly, can actually contain viruses and infections that don’t allow a person an opportunity to protect their own browser and computer.
These infections usually leave spyware and trojans that try to steal your information from your computer.
Surprisingly, the websites with these sorts of advertisements may have never intended for you to fall victim to scareware or other infections.
Usually, websites with these ads tend to be smaller websites using an advertisement agency that does not fully screen all the advertisements they are receiving, allowing malicious people to send their harmful information out onto the Internet.
There is a very simple solution to these real threats: ad-blocking software. If you use Firefox or Google Chrome, there are two good options that you can attach to your browser.
The first option is Adblock Plus, which is a common choice that works well. There is also uBlock Origin that uses less processing power than Adblock Plus that also blocks most advertisements. Both of these options will go a very long way in protecting your computer.
If you are using Internet Explorer or Microsoft Edge, these web browsers do not support add-ons and have weak advertisement blocking capabilities.
Firefox and Chrome on their own, even without add-ons, are more secure than Internet Explorer. If you have not switched to Chrome or Firefox, I highly recommend you make the change soon.
The installation processes for Adblock Plus and uBlock Origins are very straightforward and easy on Chrome and Firefox. You can Google the ad-blocker you want to use and go to either the Chrome web store or Add-ons For Firefox, based on which browser you are using.
Keep in mind that this isn’t a substitute for anti-virus. Ad-blocking extensions for your browser simply help to block the things that could become nasty infections.
For a more protected computer, you should absolutely use both anti-virus and ad-blockers.
If you need help setting up ad-block software or have questions, you can always contact Tech Experts.
Stay safe and remember to use ad-blocking software to keep your Internet experience safe.