  The behavior of microgels near surfaces and their adsorption is studied by
simple scaling theory. Two different types of microgels can be studied, i.e.,
fractal type microgels and randomly crosslinked polymer chains. In the first
case the gel can be described mainly by introducing a spectral dimension. The
second type requires more attention and uses the number of crosslinks as
parameter. The main result is that soft gels with weakly coupled crosslinks and
a low number of crosslinks adsorb much better than hard gels, with many
crosslinks. Similar results for fractal gels and branched polymer are
presented. Fractal gels with low connectivity adsorb easier than gels with a
large connectivity dimension. We discuss also consequences on surface
protection by microgels.
