Beware Adware

The Zango adware is a type of almost always unwanted software that many computer users and antivirus software makers have come to classify as malware. Most active from 1999 to 2008, the company responsible for the creation of adware Zango is now shuttered, making an infection very unlikely but still possible.

The program adware.zangosearch was one of the first types of adware. It was originally created with the pay-to-surf model. In the earliest days, computer users were essentially paid to use the internet when they searched and surfed with this program as it inundated users with popup advertisements.

While adware.zangosearch has some very legitimate applications that are not malicious at all, that is not at all how it started being used. By 2001 almost everyone who installed adware Zango on their computer did so completely unknowingly.

In an attempt to make money from the end users clicking on the ads this program delivered, unscrupulous developers and webmasters started to bundle this parasite into other programs and media content. Users were never told they were installing the Zango adware onto their system, but they found it there after the fact.

How infections occur

As was mentioned, your odds of getting this parasite on your computer have diminished dramatically since the company responsible for this adware closed in 2009. Do not be fooled, however, there are places on the web that have not been updated since, and you could still find yourself with this parasite on your system.

Downloading free software, vide or other media are prime ways to find your system infected. Usually this is somewhat premium content you are getting for free. Adware such as this can also come from downloading media from a site you don’t know or trust.

Who can get infected

Adware Zango was designed to work with personal computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system. When Zango Adware was still actively being produced and marketed, Windows XP was a popular operating system and Windows Vista was the newest commercially available OS by Windows, so these were the last operating systems the malware would have been optimized for.

This parasite also affected web browsers. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer web browser would be affected by this infection.

Removal

A low to medium threat, all antivirus and antimalware programs on the market should be able to identify and find this infection as it is so well known. Adware Zango and its variants (Hotbar, HBTools, and Seekmo – the latter is now being produced by a different company) should be easily rooted out and deleted by security software.

Occasionally, your existing protection may not be able to get rid of this threat. If this is the case, you may need to download a second security product and use that to scan your system and remove the parasite. You can also manually remove Zango adware; there are tutorials to guide you through the process all over the web.

No matter how you choose to eliminate this infection, just make sure you do it, and you do it quickly. While not a high threat, it is terribly annoying and distracting and could result in even further problems for you and your PC.

Tags: adware, adware zango, computer, pc, security