Spyware people look up to see the curb & gutter

What is spyware? Don't try to find the answer on just any site trying to sell you some "anti-spyware" utility. They will probably put spyware on your PC while you visit. Go only to reliable, tested sites, or a known entity that exists for information purposes like Wikipedia. Here is their description:


Spyware consists of a broad category of malicious software intended to intercept or take partial control of a computer's operation without the user's informed consent. While the term taken literally suggests software that surreptitiously monitors the user, it has come to refer more broadly to software that subverts the computer's operation for the benefit of a third party.

Spyware differs from viruses and worms in that it does not usually self-replicate. As in the case of many recent viruses, the makers of spyware design their product to exploit infected computers for commercial gain. Typical tactics furthering this goal include delivery of unsolicited pop-up advertisements; theft of personal information (including financial information such as credit card numbers); monitoring of web-browsing activity for marketing purposes; or routing of HTTP requests to advertising sites.

As of 2005, spyware affects only computers running Microsoft Windows operating systems. No users have (yet) reported observations of spyware running on Mac OS X, Linux, or other platforms.


How do we combat these baboons? Go to MajorGeeks, click on the
Anti-Spyware category and download these utilities:

Spybot Search & Destroy
Ad-aware SE Personal
Spwareblaster (may not run on all PCs)

After you have these wonderful tools in place, be sure and upgrade them! I run Ad-aware on an almost daily basis after checking for upgrades. Spybot S&D is scheduled for 3 times a week and checks for updates every time it runs. Spywareblaster is checked for updates twice a week which is all the maintenance it needs besides enabling protection when new updates are installed. There are some huge benefits from tweaking these programs, especially Spybot S&D. DO NOT go into advanced settings of this program and just start clicking away. You might want to read this before installing ->Spybot S&D Tutorial.

Please, please get a dependable ANTI-VIRUS program and use it. If you insist on using Norton's Insternet Security (NIS) or System Works, by all means, go ahead. Just remember, when it slows down your computer and causes problems, techs do charge to remove this nasty stuff. Norton's Anti-Virus, as a stand alone, suffices. AVG is better and there's a Free Edition available for download!! It can be found under Anti-Virus at MajorGeeks.

Firefox can be found at MajorGeeks under the Browser category. This does alleviate some problems, but it is by no means a stand alone cure. When using Windows, this is my default browser. Since Microsoft is not permitting Windows 98 and 2000 users to download the soon to be released Internet Explorer 7, it may be a good idea to start using Firefox.

Why MajorGeeks? Great site with extremely fast download speeds. They have several alternative download servers and are not usually bogged down like most of the download sites on the homepages of these great utilities. They also sell the kewlest geek T-shirts on the net!

Install properly, update like your cyberlife depends on it (it does), and scan regularly...

"False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil."
-Socrates