Is Akamai a virus and how can I remove it?

Question

Hi, everyone I go to yahoo it seems to redirect through akamei net- does anyone know if that is spyware ( please no guessing, KNOWING is the question) and if yes how to remove it? I use firefox and have sophos and adaware but both do not seem to recognize it as a spyware. Thanks

Answer 1

Akamai is a private company that hosts a server farm that distributes web traffic. Microsoft, Mozilla, Yahoo, Google, and many, many other companies use Akamai. It helps to spread out the server load that is imposed by so much traffic to a site.

Answer 2

Not a virus. Reputable company. Benefits your computer, makes it faster. Blah blah

Oh yeah, get Spybot Search & Destroy, I'm pretty sure Adaware covers your viruses, but not spyware as such. Don't know about Sophos. But make sure you don't install too many, as some tend to conflict with each other. But then again, install more than one, because some fly swats miss flies, and if you have another, it'll catch it on the second round

wow I'm so good with metaphors.

Answer 3

Akamai is not a virus. It is a legit company. Do not be concerned.

Answer 4

Akamai is a content distribution network (CDN).

They have lots of web servers with lots of bandwidth in lots of different countries.  Companies like Yahoo and Apple have Akamai serve parts of their websites for them to reduce their costs.

Nearly all of the static files (such as images, css and javascript files) on apple.com are served from images.apple.com which is owned by Akamai.  Most of the images on Yahoo sites are served from l.yimg.com which is also owned by Akamai.

You can check the owner of these servers by using a DNS lookup server. (I have linked one below)