What is spyware?
Spyware and adware is a big issue today and the problem is only
going to get bigger over the next few years. To understand how
to rid your computer of spyware you have to first understand why
it is being created in the first place so why don't we look at
that.
Companies in the past created spyware as a service to their
advertisers. What would happen is you would install an
application that you thought was cute or useful like Bonzai
buddy or Comet Cursors and you used this knowing that it was
free. What you did not know was that these "free" programs in
fact were tracking all of the websites that you were going to
and then sending back the information to the company that
created the application, this seemed to be bad but not many
people were too concerned. After the companies got this
information on your surfing habits then they would change the
ads on web pages, this is adware, so that they were targeting
topics that you had shown interest in, and of course those
companies were picking up the advertising dollars for placing
those ads on your computer.
Now that you can see the basics of how spyware is created and
why you can imagine how lucrative a business it is to create
spyware. In fact the company that was Gator is now called Claria
and made profits of $100 million last year. Since there is so
much money to be made in the spyware business there are always a
lot of new spyware being released. All of this spyware is
probably really slowing down your computer and breaking your
applications.
There are a lot of ways that a computer can get spyware and its
cousin Adware. The most popular ways right now are still by
installing programs that have the spyware embedded directly into
it and is launched as soon as you install the program. Other
ways to get spyware are from visiting webpages that drop Active
X controls on your computer or run javascripts and even
sometimes from objects placed within emails.
Most of the time getting spyware and getting rid of spyware is
not very difficult but it takes some work on the user's part,
that's you! There are several programs out there that will get
rid of the spyware and adware but the two that are most common
are Spybot and AdAware both of these programs are free to
download and free to use. I have used Spybot and Adaware for
years now and I never use just one of the two, I always use both
as they seem to each catch spyware and adware that the other
does not.
In the end you can not always rely on just one or two free
programs but even just using these two free products will often
make a big difference to speeding up and securing your computer.
When you are ready you can look around and often find one or
more great programs that will do it all in one place and do a
better job at that.