10 Symptoms Of Adware To Identify It’s Presence In Your PC

Today, among all online users one biggest fear ruling out is the attack of Viruses on their PC. Well, this fear is obvious because the intervention of malware species like “Adware” not only hampers your device but also puts your crucial data in the risk.

So, to minimize the risk factor it’s very important to suspect a virus at the right time. That’s why it is even more important to know the sign and symptoms of Adware for easy identification of this malware in your PC.

You can say knowledge of signs and symptoms of Adware infection plays a very important role to throw out the infection from your PC at the right time.

Sign & Symptoms Of Adware Infection

Here is the list of ways to identify the presence of Adware in your Device.

1. Frequent Bomabarding of Advertisement And Popups
2. Lack Of Storage Space In Your PC
3. Suspicious Hard Drive Activity
4. Slow & Sluggish PC Performance
5. Browser Homepage Redirection
6. Unexpected And Wired Warning Messages
7. Addition Of New Toolbars
8. Antivirus Programs Stopped Working
9. System Undergoes Crashing/Freezing Issue
10. All Files Are Turned Into Shortcuts

Sign #1: Frequent Bomabarding Of Advertisement And Popups

The frequent occurrence of ads and pop-ups is one subtle sign of Adware infection.

After the intervention of Adware in your PC your search engine results start occupying with more ads. You will see text advertisements appearing throughout the content of the webpage which you are watching out.

It’s normal to see a banner at the side or in the top section of the webpage but if you are noticing an increase in this banner size throughout the page, then it’s a point to get worried. As it is seen that Adware wreak havoc your sites to make it unable to use.

This form of malware is mainly designed for collecting and stealing up the user’s crucial data without their knowledge.

These ads and pop-up messages are not only annoying but usually, they come bundled with hidden malware threats which can be more destructive for your OS.

Sign #2: Lack Of Storage Space In Your PC

Adware like malware manipulates the documents and files saved on the PC and tends to occupy your system hard drive by injecting malicious files.

If you notice any new application which you haven’t installed before then don’t try to open the application. Just search the name of that program in your internet browser to get confirmed whether it’s malware or any legitimate program.

Once you are sure that it’s malware then uninstall it immediately and scan your PC using anti-virus protection.

Sign #3: Suspicious Hard Drive Activity

Another very common warning sign of adware that you can notice in your PC is the suspicious activity of Hard Drive.

• If your hard drive starts working excessively even when there is no program running
• Sometime you may also start receiving warning messages like there is no free space left, on the specific hard drive partition even when it shows empty.

Then this indicates the presence of Adware in your PC.

Sign #4: Slow & Sluggish PC Performance 

Slow running PC is the most common symptom of Adware infection. So, if your PC’S Operating System and programs are taking a long time to start up. Or your network bandwidth suspiciously gets too slow? Then it means that your PC is potentially hijacked with the virus.

Don’t make a guess that your system has a virus. Check to ensure whether a virus or any other thing making your PC’s performance down. First of all, check whether you are running out of RAM.

In Windows PC:

Open your task manager by pressing the Ctrl + Shift + Esc altogether from your keyboard. After then go to the Performance tab to see how many GB of RAM is been used within the section.

In the Mac PC:

Open the Activity Monitor app and then go to the System Memory. Here you can see the RAM usage.

If all things are ok then the virus can be the reason behind your slow sluggish system performance.

Sign #5: Browser Homepage Redirection

If you are noticing that your browser homepage is redirecting to some other web pages other than the one you are asking it to open.  Then this could be a clear sign of Adware malware infection.

This issue generally arises when you visit some suspicious website and by mistake tap on the pop-up window or any link.

Your one mistake will trigger the downloading of unwanted software and the installation of malware species on your device. These effects not only annoy you but can also compromise the complete of your data.

Sign #6: Unexpected And Wired Warning Messages

If you are encountering usual and weird warning messages which force you to think for a while “what’s going on in my PC?” then it could be due to Adware infection.

 Here are some commonly obtained warning signs to watch out:

• You will observe an automatic closing and opening of your program.
• Unexpected shutting down of Windows OS without any error or reason.
• The sudden display of strange Windows at the time of PC taking boot up.
• Windows gives a message regarding lost access to some of your specific drives.

All these warning signs are clear indications that Adware hijacked your PC and it degrading down its activity.

Sign #7: Addition Of New Toolbars

 

If you are observing new toolbars on your browser or new icons in your PC, then most likely they have come from the sneaky programs called PUPs (Potentially Unwanted Programs). 

These malicious programs are responsible for so many malicious activities like; data leakage, frequent displaying of annoying ads, the addition of toolbar, etc.

Don’t get confused with Adware and PUP because there are very slight differences between these two. Check out my post on How Is Adware Different From PUPs?

Such PUP programs come bundled with malicious software. Accidently you may have given the allowance to install additional toolbars that are hidden within the software package.

Sign#8: Antivirus Programs Stopped Working

If you are noticing that your antivirus program is not working anymore even though its expiry date is left. Then it is also a sign that Adware is invaded in your PC

Even malware researchers have now concluded that there are some types of sneaky Adware present which directly attacks system security programs.

They are mainly targeted to break PC’s defender programs like Antivirus or Windows Firewalls. So that no antivirus program can detect it’s presence on PC.

it is a fact that traditional anti-viruses can’t block or remove advanced malware species (like adware, browser hijacker, Ransomware etc)

Thus you are recommended to enhance your protection by using professional recommended Malware Removal Tool.

Sign #9: System Undergoes Crashing/Freezing Issue

Does your PC frequently get freezes and then show up Blue Screen Of Death at the time of watching YouTube video or playing a game? Or whenever you are working with any system application it crashes.

 Well, there can be two reasons for this issue:

1. Technical Issues

If it’s due to technical issue then the reason can be :

• PC programs confliction: Maybe your device is dealing with some technical issues caused by incompatibility between hardware and software.
• Orphaned registry keys: chunks of data that are left out in the process of uninstalling programs. Though such data don’t occupy unnecessary space. But it can hamper your system functionalities and eventually, your system renders crashing issues.

2. Presence of Adware infection

Once you got a clearance of having no technical issue then make a complete scan using a good anti-virus product.

Sign #10: All Files Are Turned Into Shortcuts

Here is another very clear and common warning sign to identify the presence of Adware on your PC.

Have you ever noticed that connecting the external USB drive with your PC has turned out all your files and document into shortcuts?

If yes then beware because it’s a sign that your PC is badly infected with Adware.

It is found that all the files, documents, and images converted as a shortcut file are completely inaccessible as they are infected with malware. Apart from that, such malicious files can also compromise the entire of your data present on your PC.

Can I Avoid Adware Malware Infections?

After reading out the sign and symptoms of Adware one very obvious question that comes in everyone’s mind is that can I avoid Adware malware infection?

The answer is yes; definitely you can avoid Adware infection just by following these 3 rules:

• Firstly by paying close attention to all these above-mentioned signs of Adware malware infection.
• Secondly, by keeping your OS, Plug-in and browsers updated. As it is found that, keeping your software patched will keep the online criminals away.
• The third way is to use a safe and secure network. Always follow the safe browsing habit and think before clicking to any online stuff. Access only trusted online sources as it is the best way to avoid online threats.

Wrap Up:

At the end, I want to conclude that, it’s best to know how to identify the presence of Adware in your PC so that you can take fix the problem within time.

Even though, your system is infected with malware or not but make a regular habit of running regular scans with anti-virus on your PC.