Tandon in the Media

This Software Is So Sleazy Google Calls It ‘Ooze’

You probably don’t even realize you’re downloading this junk.

There’s a type of software Google finds so sleazy that the company refers to it internally as “ooze.” That’s the pronunciation of the acronym at least: UwS, short for “unwanted software.” (Ooze, hereafter.)

Though malware garners outsized attention among security folk, regular people encounter ooze — a grayer cousin to outright malicious code — three times more often online, the search giant found in a study that it previewed exclusively with Fortune. According to Google’s data, people bump into 60 million browser warnings for download attempts of unwanted software at unsafe webpages every week.

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