What do you call these?

[aimeeandbeatles]

Every so often, my mom's computer gets infected with some sort of malware, which continually pops up ads and connects to websites saying her computer was infected by spyware, making the computer almost unusable, and kept annoying her to buy the software. It also disabled the task manager. We finally had to wipe the computer.

What are these called?

 

[GoodGame]

Malware is the general term for the category of anything unwanted.

Looks like it was very aggressive adware. You probably should get a complete internet security package. I'm enjoying Kaspersky's one, but it's pretty steep in system requirements. It's a shame that it's needed. I just read the other day that more malware is written and released today than commercial software.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Thank you.

I was doing a bit of (very careful) research, and came up with the name of it. WinFixer.

I wanted to know in case mom gets it again. She got infected with it on her comp 3-4 times.