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Avoiding Adware and Spyware
What is Spyware and Adware
What are Spyware and Adware? Adware is software which advertising companies install onto your computer. They are made to display ads every so often in the hope that you will click them, and go to view the product which they are advertising. This can be very annoying to you as a computer user and can spoil you computing experience.
Spyware is very similar to Adware, but work in a different way. Instead of displaying Ads these programs collect information about you. This information is then sent back to the company’s that have infected you with this Spyware. They can use this information in conjunction with Ad companies to display relative adverts about the things that you commonly use on the internet.
However, Spyware can have a more sinister use. Spyware can be used to collect sensitive information about you. For example Spyware can be used to collect credit card numbers and passwords from the sites that you visit.
Avoiding Adware
There are many precautions which you can take to keep yourself free from Adware. Firstly install a good popup blocker, such as the one included on the Google toolbar. Most of these are free and can stop major pop ups and adverts.
Another step you should take is to avoid clicking on messages that say ‘Click yes to access this site’ and strange windows offering downloads. Only download from sites which can be trusted, such as Microsoft. These downloads could be Spyware, or even something worse such as a Virus. Therefore, these kind of pop ups should be avoided.
There should always be an option of clicking no on these downloads. Even some websites show another message saying you must click yes. However, if you keep clicking no the pop ups will stop and then you are free to visit the site.
Avoiding Spyware
The main ways of avoiding Spyware is to get a program which keeps scanning for the Spyware. However, because you are often not told about the software being downloaded this is very difficult. Just perform the same security checks as Adware, and this should be efficient in keeping the Spyware away.
Another precaution against Spyware is to install a firewall. These are programs which stop unwanted contact with the internet. These will stop the Spyware contacting with the vendors (the company which sends you the programs) and therefore rendering the program useless.
General Precautions
If you are using Internet explorer 6 you can adjust the browsers security settings. Doing this you can set the preferred level of information you will accept from a website. However adjusting these to higher levels may stop some websites working correctly.
To change the settings left click ‘tools’, then ‘internet options…’. This will bring up the internet options dialog box. From here click the internet ‘security tab’ at the top of the window. Now, at the bottom of this window, there is a scale that will allow you to manually adjust the security settings at the bottom. Moving the scale up will lower the amount of information that will be accepted from websites, and lowering the scale will higher up the amount of information which will be accepted from websites.
A final precaution is to not go on certain websites. Many sites containing adult material, illegal downloads and MP3s have a higher chance of containing Spyware. Therefore it is recommended that these sites are avoided to reduce the chances of catching Spyware.
Read the small print when installing applications. Many free programs need to include Adware from companies to keep free, and there is often no choice in installing these programs. Therefore, if you don’t want these programs installed on your, then cancel the installation of the program.
Indications of infection
There are several give offs which could be a sign of infection. Some of these are easy to spot, where as some can be a little tricky. However, no matter how hard they are to detect there are a few ways to spot an infection of Adware.
The first indication is obvious. Some Adware programs change your homepage to a page full of adverts. Your homepage is the web site which your internet program loads up when it is started. Many people have Yahoo!, Google or MSN as there homepage. It is recommended that you set one of these as your homepage because they are trusted websites.
Another indication is if you see an increase of adverts on sites which didn’t have any before. If you have noticed that sites which didn’t have adverts before then you could have Adware. To check go to another website which you sure doesn’t have adverts, and see if adverts pop up there. If they do then there is a very good chance that you computer is infected with Spyware.
Removal of Spyware and Adware
There are several free tools which you can use to remove Spyware. These are mainly free and are very easy to use. The first tool is Ad-Aware (Lava soft). This is a very easy tool to use and will remove most Adware SE and Spyware. Another good program to use is Spy-Bot search and destroy. This again is very effective at removing Spyware. It is also easy and simple to use. Links for both these can be found at the bottom of this page.
Ad-Aware SE (http://www.lavasoftusa.com/support/download/)
Spy-Bot search and destroy (http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html)
Article By Gareth Wright, September 2004.
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