Introduction
From time to time I have heard chatter about Spyware.
Programs that monitor your surfing activity and take that
information and upload it (without your knowledge). This information is then used/sold
to generate targeted ads and the like. While the existence of this is nothing new,
most people are unaware of it.
Where does spyware come from
Spyware can come from Freeware programs that pay for themselves by selling this
information (programs like Gozilla and other) web sites that store cookies and
other information and other places too.
Do you care? Well maybe not, that level of paranoia is up to you.
What can I do?
What can you do? Well there are a lot of programs that you can look at to
eradicate spyware once it has entered your system.
But in my mind what you really want to do is block these programs from ever getting into your system.
Now you obviously need to remove the existing stuff as well, but blocking is the real deal.
Spyware blockers
I have been using Spystop for a number of weeks
now and since I did I have not had one Spyware enter my system.
The web site includes a pretty good description of what is spyware and the like.
This program seems to be quite good at blocking spyware from ever getting into your system.
I used a scanner to confirm that the program has been successful at doing so.
It also blocks ads which can be VERY helpful on bandwidth limited connections like dial up. By blocking
ad sites a lot of the job is done since it is these sites that are using and collecting the
data on you.
The program is not as configurable as I would like and seems to be a bit hard on your processor.
If you can afford a bit of performance it may be well worth your while.
On a slower machine like a Pentium say this program may be too hard on it to be practical.
Other spyware blockers:
Spyware Scanners/removers
There are lots of programs in this category. I played with a few and they all have
strengths and weaknesses and they all know about different spyware programs.
Spyware can reside in programs on your hard drive, programs loaded into memory
and in the registry. So you want to be able to deal with them all.
- Ontrack offers a program called Internet cleanup. This program has a number of nice features not related to spyware. This includes the ability to clean up your internet cache, your Browser history, delete cookies, remove unwanted Internet Explorer plugins and of course remove Spyware. The interface tot his program is quite well done.
- Freeware program called Adaware. This program is quite thorough in the number of Spyware programs it knows about, (more than Ontracks) but I am not fond of the user interface. You can't argue with the job it does but it's interface is a little unclear about what exactly it is cleaning up.
I'm sure there are lots more but this is a good start.
Links to read more about Spyware