More on My Point of View!
Spyware is clogging our computers and slowing them to an almost unusable condition. I think that of all the junk out there, including viruses; spyware makes me the most angry. Just about everyone is aware of virus. New computers come with a virus scanner and the news is full of how some virus has caused a lot of problems. Unfortunately there are a lot of people that don’t keep their virus scanners updated for any number of reasons, but that is another issue.
Spyware, however, sneaks on to computers with the user totally unaware. It can eventually clog a computer to the point that nothing works. Spyware can secretly monitor anything you do on your computer. It may detect passwords or other confidential information and send the information to another computer. Spyware is usually downloaded from Web sites either in shareware or freeware, email messages and instant messengers. If the user doesn’t read the EULA (End User License Agreement) and accepts, spyware can be installed on the computer. Sometimes it just piggybacks in and installs silently. One major way is using peer-to-peer programs (file sharing).
Once we find out about spyware we try to protect our computers by installing software to ferret out the spyware. There are several free programs that do a very good job finding and removing spyware. There are Ad-aware, Spybot Search and Destroy and undoubtedly others that do a good job, although I am not aware of any more. Most have a free version that work well as long as they are updated on a regular basis. The free programs have to be updated manually while the paid programs usually have an automated update feature. Not all of the paid programs have this feature and even if they do, you need to check periodically to make sure it is working. Spyware is almost like virus; new spies are out there everyday. What I find especially despicable are the sites selling spyware removal programs that are spyware themselves. Some of the for sale spyware removals advertise a free download and neglect to tell the unsuspecting user that if they want the spyware removed, they must purchase the program!
Spyware removal is one of my personal projects, so occasionally I download & try a program to see how it performs. I nearly always remember to tell my firewall not to let the program to have Internet access. (This is extremely important!) I will then run Ad-aware and/or Spybot. The last two I tried went like this. The first program I installed made my firewall go wild. The so-called Spyware removal program was trying to get out. Ad-aware found thirty-two instances of spyware. All were from this program. With the second program I told my firewall to let it access the Internet. When I ran the program it ‘found’ eleven spyware entries, eight in my registry. It did not give me the registry key, so I fired up Regedit and did a search for the so-called spyware keys. Nothing turned up. Then I ran Ad-aware and just guess what? Thirty-one spyware entries were found and all from the so-called spyware removal program. This is despicable. Consumers are being cheated.
Another very alarming trend is for your search page or home page to be hijacked. I am seeing a lot of posts in Yahoo wanting fixes for this problem. See the sidebar for more information.
Some time ago we were warned about a security issue in Internet Explorer, the browser that comes with all versions of Windows starting with Windows 95. At the time of the warning there was no fix available, so Microsoft was telling folks to change their security settings in IE to the very highest. On Friday, July 2, Microsoft did post a fix. Now, I don't know about you, but this was just one too many security issue with Internet Explorer. It's fixed now, but what is next? We have to be on guard for virus, trojans, spyware and scams, that's enough! I have to change my settings in my browser? And some sites won't work with these changes?
For some time a lot of my Internet friends have been saying, "Get Mozilla Firefox, you will like it! No security issues, tabbed browsing and lots of other great features."
So I took their advice, downloaded and installed Firefox. I love it! Wish I had done this a long time ago! Try it, you will like it!
