Spyware - Fight Back

Spyware - How To Fight Back

Spyware can infect your computer systems. The least of the worries is that it will slow your system down. But on the scarier side, it may be passing your information to unknown users doing who-knows-what with that data.

Spyware is the latest annoyance to computer users. Spyware is a lot like a computer virus. It is a piece of software that gets deposited on your computer. You are rarely asked if you want to install it. Generally, spyware is used to gather information from your computer. What makes spyware different from a virus is that most spyware is not detected and removed by most standard virus checkers.

Not all spyware is bad. For example, you can put tracking software on your computer to track the internet usage habits of your staff or children. Clearly, this is something that is desirable. Another example is shopping software from mypoints.com. This company places an agent on your computer so when you buy something online from one of the member companies you earn reward points similar to airline miles.

There are some very good ways to fight back against this new scourge and many of them are free. One of the best rated and reviewed tools is Spybot Search and Destroy which can be found at www.download.com and typing ‘spybot’ in the search field. This program is free and even has free updates. However, the author does depend on donations to help with its the development. This program comes very highly rated by PC World, PC User Group, Download.com, and the Wall Street Journal. Running it is very similar to running a virus scan on your system. The Spybot looks for spyware and then shows you what it found. You decide what to keep and what goes away. That way, your shopping bots or security monitors will stay on your system.

A spyware killer should be an essential part of your computer security plan, just like a virus checker.

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