- Adware: Software with advertising or which downloads advertising to your computer. Some Adware may also be Spyware which does invade your privacy. Some programs are free to use as long as you can tolerate the advertising which you can get turned off by paying a fee/buying the program. Other programs are provided simply because of the advertising. Others are spying on you. Lavasoft's Ad-Aware will remove many of the nasty types of Adware.
- Application: Used to refer to any computer program which performs one or more useful functions. Most, but not all programs - or applications - have a GUI (Graphical User Interface) which sucks up memory and uses too much disk space but makes it easier to use. Many also suffer from code bloat meaning they have a lot of poorly written code that usually works but takes too much space and uses too much memory. A goodly number of applications are also released while they are still full of bugs (program errors) and the buyers not only have the privilege of paying for a buggy app but are also expected to act as testers. I may be wrong but I think Microsoft pioneered this concept and still lives by it (you have noticed those weekly updates and fixes MS is always releasing, right?).
- Backdoor: An illicit entry point into a computer which bypasses the usual login or authentication procedures. Backdoors can be actual programs that have been installed surreptitiously on a computer or modifications of an existing program or a piece of hardware. In the most typical cases backdoors are installed as part of the payload of a worm and can be used so a spammer can send spam email from your computer.
- Backup: Save your OS, applications, files and/or other data OFF your computer to another storage device such as CD, DVD, tape, an external hard drive or even another computer. Too few people do this. Then they whine because they lost files when their system crashed or they had to reinstall the Operating System and they lost a lot of important stuff and ended up spending a lot of basically wasted time. If it was important, it should have been backed up. If you don't back up your system, your applications and your data, then you don't get to whine. Systems crash, systems get infected, shit will happen. Back up regularly. You only need it when you REALLY NEED it.
- Browser Hijacker: One type of browser hijacker replaces your browser's home page, search page or error page. This is done to redirect your browser to a specific website. Another type of browser hijacking occurs when you mistype a domain or URL and end up on a monetized "search" page. Some hijackers will also start collecting information about your computer. Most current antispyware software will remove hijackers even though they are persistent and highly annoying things. If you get hijacked and try to reset through your browser, it will probably come back next time you restart your computer.
- CPU: Central Processing Unit - the brain of your computer. It has a speed, usually stated in Gigahertz which indicates how fast it works. Graphics designers, intense number crunching and state of the art games usually require nearly as much CPU as you can afford. Most typical computer users do not need as much CPU as their machines already have.
- Defragment: Files that are stored on disk drives are best stored in a continuous or contiguous fashion. This decreases the time needed to access a file. However, as a hard drive has files added and deleted, it may no longer be possible to store a file contiguously and it is broken into "fragments" stored at different locations on the disk. To defragment a hard drive means to shift the files around so that as many as possible of the files are stored contiguously and the number of file fragments is minimized. Defragmenting a drive can significantly increase a computer's performance.
- Disk Drive: Generally this refers to the physical disk that is installed internally in your computer to store programs and data. Also known as "hard disk" to distinguish it from the "floppy" disks originally used for data and programs before internal disk drives became affordable.
- Easter Egg: Hidden messages, audio, images, program behavior changes or even games inside a program which are triggered by some undocumented commands, keystrokes, clicks etc. These are rarely dangerous and may be a joke, program credits or special and unexpected features. These are becoming much less common because of the increase in malware and the concern over hidden code. Easter eggs may also occur in hardware, movies and so forth and are not restricted to software.
- Logic Bomb: A piece of code inserted into a program which then performs some nasty function when certain preset conditions are met. This is the dark side version of the Easter Egg. Viruses and worms often contain or deliver logic bombs.
- Malware: Software which can invade and possibly damage a computer system without the user's consent. It can refer to a variety of program types since it is defined by intent rather than any specific qualities of the software. Viruses, worms, trojan horses, spyware etc. can all be considered malware. The term is coined from "malicious software."
- OS or Operating System: This is a set of programs which control the CPU and tell it what to do and how to do what it does. The 3 most common are some variety of Windows, the MAC OS and some version of Linux. Windows or a Linux variant will run on the same machine. A MAC OS pretty much reguires an Apple. Applications are pretty much Operating System specific. Some apps may run on a variety of Windows operating systems but not on a Mac or a Linux system. And vice versa.
