.Companion Is Adware With A Multifaceted Approach

Especially dangerous to your computer, .Companion is a bug that will attack you from several angles. It can be loaded on your computer from a number of sources, particularly Kazaa and other peer-to-peer, or P2P, file sharing groups, and as part of the Gator user ID/password storage software. File sharing groups are notorious for enabling the spread of internet parasites including viruses and adware. Simply put, when you download a file from one of these sites, you don’t know exactly what you’re going to get, so definitely user beware.

Though never a safe program, Gator is almost completely obsolete these days, since most internet browsers have user ID and password storage built in. Incidentally, if you’re in the habit of storing your user IDs and passwords on your browser, it’s in your best interest to quit now. This practice can leave you open to exploitation by hackers. Your identity can be stolen this way very easily, so it’s much safer to have this information written somewhere or remembered by yourself.

So what does .Companion do? Well, in terms of what adware does, nearly everything. It monitors your browsing activity to deliver it to an outside server. It displays pop up advertising. It also changes your browser settings and resets your home page, which is a more polite way of saying “hijacking.” The monitoring feature is where it’s possible that your login information can be exploited. While it may not be important in the case of blogs and membership only sites, it can be deadly serious when it comes to bank accounts and credit card information. Again, user beware!

Assuming that information from your accounts isn’t being exploited, there are still major problems with adware. For one thing, the pop up (pop under, banner, etc.) advertisements are annoying, if not potentially embarrassing. For another, and this is especially true with this program, all this activity of pop ups, browser monitoring, changing browser settings, communication back and forth with people you don’t know, all without your knowledge and consent, costs your computer’s performance by sapping its resources. It takes your computer’s memory to run these programs. Also, your computer’s memory is directly related to how much bandwidth your internet connection has, which also gets drained by these programs. So, adware is a double-whammy on use of your computer’s resources.

The next thing you know, your programs and internet connections slow down to a crawl. Some of your larger programs may not run at all, and display error messages. Your computer itself may freeze up and display its own error messages. In this case, if you’re working on a project, you will in all likelihood lose that information when you have to reboot your computer.