Google: Unwanted Software Is Worse Than Malware (thestack.com)

An anonymous reader writes from a report via The Stack: A year-long study between Google and New York University has determined that unwanted software unwittingly downloaded as part of a bundle is a larger problem for users than malware. Google Safe Browsing currently generates three times as many Unwanted Software (UwS) warnings than malware warnings -- over 60 million per week. Types of unwanted software fall into five categories: ad injectors, browser settings hijackers, system utilities, anti-virus, and major brands. While estimates of UwS installs are still emerging, studies suggest that ad injection affects 5% of browsers, and that deceptive extensions in the Chrome Web store affect over 50 million users. 59% of the bundles studied were flagged by at least one anti-virus engine as potentially unwanted.

Comments

Re:It took a year to figure this out?

[diamondmagic]

It took a study to figure out the magnitude of the problem.

The number being 20% or 80% could mean the difference between spending a thousand or a million dollars on the problem.