Adware, often called advertising-supported software by its developers, is software that generates revenue for its developer by automatically generating online advertisements in the user interface of the software or on a screen presented to the user during the installation process. The software may generate two types of revenue: one is for the display of the advertisement and another on a "pay-per-click" basis, if the user clicks on the advertisement. Some advertisements also act as spyware, collecting and reporting data about the user, to be sold or used for targeted advertising or user profiling. The software may implement advertisements in a variety of ways, including a static box display, a banner display, a full screen, a video, a pop-up ad or in some other form. All forms of advertising carry health, ethical, privacy and security risks for users.
Spyware is any software with malicious behavior that aims to gather information about a person or organization and send it to another entity in a way that harms the user by violating their privacy, endangering their device's security, or other means. This behavior may be present in malware and in legitimate software. Websites may engage in spyware behaviors like web tracking. Hardware devices may also be affected.
The Start menu is a graphical user interface element that has been part of Microsoft Windows since Windows 95, providing a means of opening programs and performing other functions in the Windows shell. The Start menu, and the Taskbar on which it appears, were created and named in 1993 by Daniel Oran, a program manager at Microsoft who had previously collaborated on great ape language research with the behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner at Harvard.
VirusTotal is a website created by the Spanish security company Hispasec Sistemas. Launched in June 2004, it was acquired by Google in September 2012. The company's ownership switched in January 2018 to Chronicle, a subsidiary of Google.
Windows Phone (WP) is a discontinued mobile operating system developed by Microsoft for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune. Windows Phone featured a new user interface derived from the Metro design language. Unlike Windows Mobile, it was primarily aimed at the consumer market rather than the enterprise market.
Mozilla Firefox 4 is a version of the Firefox web browser, released on March 22, 2011. The first beta was made available on July 6, 2010; Release Candidate 2 was released on March 18, 2011. It was codenamed Tumucumaque, and was Firefox's last large release cycle. The Mozilla team planned smaller and quicker releases following other browser vendors. The primary goals for this version included improvements in performance, standards support, and user interface.
Google Chrome is a web browser developed by Google. It was first released in 2008 for Microsoft Windows, built with free software components from Apple WebKit and Mozilla Firefox. Versions were later released for Linux, macOS, iOS, and also for Android, where it is the default browser. The browser is also the main component of ChromeOS, where it serves as the platform for web applications.
ChromeOS, sometimes styled as chromeOS and formerly styled as Chrome OS, is a Linux distribution developed and designed by Google. It is derived from the open-source ChromiumOS, based on the Linux kernel, and uses the Google Chrome web browser as its principal user interface.
Genieo Innovation is an Israeli company, specializing in unwanted software which includes advertising and user tracking software, commonly referred to as a potentially unwanted program, adware, privacy-invasive software, grayware, or malware. They are best known for Genieo, an application of this type. They also own and operate InstallMac which distributes additional 'optional' search modifying software with other applications. In 2014, Genieo Innovation was acquired for $34 million by Somoto, another company which "bundles legitimate applications with offers for additional third party applications that may be unwanted by the user". This sector of the Israeli software industry is frequently referred to as Download Valley.
Flipboard is a news aggregator and social network aggregation company based in Palo Alto, California, with offices in New York, Vancouver, and Beijing. Its software, also known as Flipboard, was first released in July 2010. It aggregates content from social media, news feeds, photo sharing sites, and other websites, presents it in magazine format, and allows users to "flip" through the articles, images, and videos being shared. Readers can also save stories into Flipboard magazines. As of March 2016 the company claims there have been 28 million magazines created by users on Flipboard. The service can be accessed via web browser, or by a Flipboard application for Microsoft Windows and macOS, and via mobile apps for iOS and Android. The client software is available at no charge and is localized in 21 languages.
The transition from Windows 7 to Windows 8 introduced a number of new features across various aspects of the operating system. These include a greater focus on optimizing the operating system for touchscreen-based devices and cloud computing.
A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on desktop computers, and web applications which run in mobile web browsers rather than directly on the mobile device.
Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store or Play Store and formerly Android Market, is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certified devices running on the Android operating system and its derivatives, as well as ChromeOS, allowing users to browse and download applications developed with the Android software development kit and published through Google. Google Play has also served as a digital media store, offering games, music, books, movies, and television programs. Content that has been purchased on Google Play Movies & TV and Google Play Books can be accessed on a web browser and through the Android and iOS apps.
Windows RT is a mobile operating system developed by Microsoft. It is a version of Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 built for the 32-bit ARM architecture (ARMv7). First unveiled in January 2011 at Consumer Electronics Show, the Windows RT 8 operating system was officially launched alongside Windows 8 on October 26, 2012, with the release of three Windows RT-based devices, including Microsoft's original Surface tablet. Unlike Windows 8, Windows RT is only available as preloaded software on devices specifically designed for the operating system by original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).
Messenger, also known as Facebook Messenger, is an American proprietary instant messaging service developed by Meta Platforms. Originally developed as Facebook Chat in 2008, the client application of Messenger is currently available on iOS and Android mobile platforms, Windows and macOS desktop platforms, through the Messenger.com web application, and on the standalone Facebook Portal hardware.
Microsoft mobile services are a set of proprietary mobile services created specifically for mobile devices; they are typically offered through mobile applications and mobile browser for Windows Phone platforms, BREW, and Java. Microsoft's mobile services are typically connected with a Microsoft account and often come preinstalled on Microsoft's own mobile operating systems while they are offered via various means for other platforms. Microsoft started to develop for mobile computing platforms with the launch of Windows CE in 1996 and later added Microsoft's Pocket Office suite to their Handheld PC line of PDAs in April 2000. From December 2014 to June 2015, Microsoft made a number of corporate acquisitions, buying several of the top applications listed in Google Play and the App Store including Acompli, Sunrise Calendar, Datazen, Wunderlist, Echo Notification Lockscreen, and MileIQ.
Microsoft's Windows 8 operating system introduced an updated Start menu known as the "Start screen", which uses a full-screen design consisting of tiles to represent applications. This replaced the Windows desktop as the primary interface of the operating system. Additionally, the on-screen Start button was replaced by a hidden button in the corner of the screen; Microsoft explained that the Start button was removed because few people used it, noting the addition of "pinning" apps to the taskbar from Windows 7.
Allmyapps was an application store for Microsoft Windows. The service allowed users to install, update and organize over 1,500 PC applications.
SweetLabs is a software distribution company based in San Diego and Seattle. SweetLabs has raised at least $21.5 million in venture capital from Bessemer Venture Partners, Google Ventures, Intel Capital, and O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures.
Onavo, Inc. was an Israeli mobile web analytics company that was purchased by Facebook, Inc., who changed the company's name to Facebook Israel. The company primarily performed its activities via consumer mobile apps, including the virtual private network (VPN) service Onavo Protect, which analysed web traffic sent through the VPN to provide statistics on the usage of other apps.
