‘Potentially unwanted applications’ have behaviors or traits that you may consider undesirable or unwanted. ‘Unwanted applications’ have behaviors or traits with more severe impact on your device or data.
An application may be identified as ‘potentially unwanted’ (PUA) if it can:
- Affect your privacy or productivity – for example, exposes personal information or performs unauthorized actions
- Put undue stress on your device’s resources – for example, uses a considerable amount of storage or memory
- Puts the security of your device or the information stored on it at risk – for example, exposes you to unexpected content or applications
The impact of these behaviors and traits on your device or data can range from mild to severe. They are not, however, harmful enough to warrant classifying the application as malware.
If an application has behaviors or traits that have a severe impact, it is treated as an ‘unwanted application’ (UA). The product deals with such applications with more caution.
As you are the best judge of whether you want to trust and use a ‘potentially unwanted’ or ‘unwanted’ application, you can choose how you want the product to handle it:
- A potentially unwanted application – The product will display a warning before the application is allowed to run. If you trust the application, you can allow the product to run it. You can also opt to have the product block the application.
- An unwanted application – The product will block and quarantine the application. If you trust the application, you can set the product to ignore it in the future scans.