[exadsthrowaway]

Another ex-adware person here:

Building software nobody wants is pretty soul-crushing (I've since left the ad industry altogether), and I haven't heard a case of anyone actually wanting my previous employer's software.

Of course there's rationalizations ("That's just the way the internet works", "If we don't do it someone else will", and the insane "They agreed to the terms"), but I don't think anyone has the mental capacity to convince themselves people actually want malware.

People making adware generally aren't openly malevolent, but there seems to be the consensus that 'users' who install the software are idiots (sometimes with the implication that this makes it okay to scam them).

That said, it's still lucrative (and with very low risk of any repercussions), so most of the industry just wants money and doesn't really care.

[wanderingstan]

In the mid-2000's I had a new co-worker who had recently come from Gator[1]. Even not working there any longer, he maintained that their software was an incredible product and that the injected ads were "yeah, a little aggressive, but they're fixing that!"

His rationalization powers were shocking.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claria_Corporation#Gator

[stuart78]

From that Wikipedia article: "Gator's end user license agreement attempts to disallow its manual removal by prohibiting "unauthorized means" of uninstallation."

Reading the word Gator really took me back in time. Never worked on that stuff, but it brought back the visceral pain of sitting down at a friend or inlaw's computer to find Gator or one of its peers installed. Each time the internal debate: to simply remove it, to try and explain why it is bad or simply to ignore...

[ex-adware]

Pretty much! And the funny thing is that every company is always "fixing that" until they make the advertising less aggressive and revenue drops 30%. Then they turn the dial back up.

[taylorbuley]

And its big players too! I've uninstalled dozens and dozens of Ask.com and Yahoo Toolbars. In once instance, there were three in a row stacked on top of each other embedded into Firefox. Google bundled with WinZip if I remember correctly.

[PinnBrain]

Those that install adware are less intelligent--no need to paper over that. Do the writers of educational shows for small children think it ironic that they are more intelligent than their customers?

[DanBC]

Since adware often uses dark patterns to trick people into installing it I'm not sure you can draw any conclusions about intelligence. Ability to scrutinise every panel of an installation script, and check or uncheck a variety of boxes that might be described with double or tripple negatives -- and that's for the adware that is polite enough to tell you ot's going to install itself.

[PinnBrain]

But the presence of a nuisance toolbar afterwards will be quite obvious.

[DanBC]

Ignoring for a moment all the adware that doesn't install toolbars -- superfish doesn't -- you seem to have no idea about actual users. Most people would not notice an extra toolbar, or would think it's part of the default browser.

[tmzt]

Not knowing how to repair something can result in a form of learned helplessness, a belief that you are less of something than someone else.

There are efforts to show people that they don't need to buy a new computer, or install software that intentionally limits what their computer can do, or pretends to fix it for a fee. Even the programs that actually work to remove these kinds of threats (including AdAware and SD Search and Destroy) can blur the distinction between actions that are necessary to repair the problem and things that are a different kind of nuisance but not directly a threat to the operation of the computer (like tracking cookies). Software that makes installing it to use it optional is preferred, as the ongoing monitoring can often tax the computer as badly as the software being removed. (Note I'm talking only about anti-adware software here, not general anti-virus software.)

I would love to give a better option than re-install your operating system all of your software, and even that is often a difficult option since the re-installation mediums aren't even shipped with the computer in many cases. I don't want to direct a person to a service where they take the computer to be fixed that often charges more than seems fair for the hands-off approach they take to re-imaging.

Oh, on your last part, I've encountered more than one laptop where all of the installed browsers had been limited to a fraction of the screen being readable due to the number of toolbars, and general search engines being inaccessible or unusable due to the number of injection adds and popups.

[ex-adware]

Most adware is toolbar free. The only way a user would know the adware exists is by going to their extensions list.

And even now, that isn't the case anymore. More and more adware is moving over to being exclusively EXE based and proxying all HTTP traffic, or using DLLs, or doing something outside of the browser. The disclosures for the ads often times don't actually point to the name of the installed software.

I would agree that users with adware are less tech literate (sometimes), but the install screens are made to specifically trick people into installing.

[belorn]

You mean those like Lenovo, or people who bought their laptops?

[PinnBrain]

The people.

[GFK_of_xmaspast]

Writers of educational shows try to improve the lives of their audience.