Well our hot topic of
this year and last year is about Spyware. We will try and
present you will a clear idea of Spyware and what is does to
your computer. From our perspective.
Since about the middle of last year and
already the beginning of this year we have been plagued with
customers bringing in their computers. It is about four
computers a day on the average. Customers complain about
things such as their computer being extremely slow. They
can't connect to the internet. They have allot of viruses.
Their anti-virus stopped working. Can't download stuff. The
computer mysteriously shuts down. They receive allot of
pop-up adds. Porn sites just open up one after another.
Their computer is mysteriously on the internet...
These are just a small list of the complaints we are getting
when customers bring in their computers.
What is our reply...
SPYWARE and WEB BUGS! What is SPYWARE? What are WEB BUGS?
Spyware is the #1 threat to online computer privacy and
security!
Spyware is Internet jargon for Advertising
Supported software (Adware). It is a way for shareware
authors to make money from a product, other than by selling
it to the users. There are several large media companies
that offer them to place banner ads in their products in
exchange for a portion of the revenue from banner sales.
This way, you don't have to pay for the software and the
developers are still getting paid. If you find the banners
annoying, there is usually an option to remove them, by
paying the regular licensing fee.
SpyWare are
evil programs that hide on your computer and do a number of
harmful and annoying things without your knowledge.
SpyWare programs are known to
steal information from your computer such as credit card
numbers, email addresses, addresses, surfing habits, and
more.
Spyware compromises your
passwords, credit card information and other personal
information.
Spyware
slows down your Internet connection by inundating you with
pop-up ads and putting bogus files on your computer. Spyware
allows users to take control of your browser, change your
home page and alter system files. Spyware is difficult
to detect by anti-virus and firewall software.
Why is it called "Spyware" ?
While this may be a great concept, the downside is that the
advertising companies also install additional tracking
software on your system, which is continuously "calling
home", using your Internet connection and reports
statistical data to the "mothership". While according to the
privacy policies of the companies, there will be no
sensitive or identifying data collected from your system and
you shall remain anonymous, it still remains the fact, that
you have a "live" server sitting on your PC that is sending
information about you and your surfing habits to a remote
location.....
Are all Adware products "Spyware"?
No, but the majority are. There are also products that do
display advertising but do not install any tracking
mechanism on your system. These products are not indexed in
our database.
What is AdWare?
AdWare is very similar to
SpyWare but its only purpose is to advertise. AdWare will
PopUp web browser ads very frequently, change banners on
websites, change your Google and Yahoo search results with
advertisements instead of your true results and place
Windows icon advertisements on your Windows desktop, Windows
Start Menu, and in your web browser Favorites and Bookmarks.
Is Spyware illegal?
Even though the name may indicate so, Spyware is not an
illegal type of software in any way. However there are
certain issues that a privacy oriented user may object to
and therefore prefer not to use the product. This usually
involves the tracking and sending of data and statistics via
a server installed on the user's PC and the use of your
Internet connection in the background.
What's the hype about?
While legitimate adware companies will disclose the nature
of data that is collected and transmitted in their privacy
statement (linked from our database), there is almost no way
for the user to actually control what data is being sent.
The fact is that the technology is in theory capable of
sending much more than just banner statistics - and this is
why many people feel uncomfortable with the idea.
On the other hand...
Milli in fact some "Spyware" programs are among the most popular
downloads on the Internet.
Real Spyware...
There are also many PC surveillance tools that allow a user
to monitor all kinds of activity on a computer, ranging from
keystroke capture, snapshots, email logging, chat logging
and just about everything else. These tools are often
designed for parents, businesses and similar environments,
but can be easily abused if they are installed on your
computer without your knowledge.
These tools are perfectly legal in most places, but, just
like an ordinary tape recorder, if they are abused, they can
seriously violate your privacy.
What's our take on this?
We have seen this stuff in all forms lately and it
appears to only be getting worse. Sometimes we spend
countless hours trying to clean out Spyware from computers.
Although we have a arsenal of free and paid tools we use to
clean up the Spyware that's residing on your computer. Check
out our HOT DOWNLOADS section for a couple of the most
popular and free programs used to clean this garbage out and
take back control of your computer.
What do we see?
We have actually seen Spyware shut down Anti-Virus
programs, which allow viruses to infect your computer. We've
seen a couple of computers become damaged from the Spyware
where it actually causes irreversible problems with the
anti-virus program. Which leaves the solution of installing
another anti-virus program that will work or wiping out the
hard drive and installing everything fresh.
We see Spyware put bogus files on your computer, such as
.jpeg, .gifs, or .bmp (photo) files on your computer. When
you start up your computer, these files are loaded into
memory. Then your computer takes anywhere from several
minutes to several hours to load up. The bogus file(s)
direct your computer's processor to process these bogus
files, which in turn slows your computer way down.
We have seen allot of browser and network settings being
destroyed lately. We have been using Spybot Search and
Destroy to initially go in and clean out Spyware in your
computer. However, when we go to boot up the computer and
use Internet Explorer to browse the internet. We can't get
on. But, if we use another browser beside Internet Explorer,
we can access the internet. The attacks appear to be geared
toward Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Systems. We
have since started using
Adaware 6.0 to do our initial scans and cleaning. Then
we do a follow up with Spybot Search and Destroy.
Most Spyware we have been able to successfully remove
from computers. There has been a few computers where it is
more economical to just dump the drive and re-install
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