Spyware is a big problem these days. Most Windows PCs have a lot of it, without the user's knowledge; many crashes, slowdown, popups and browser hijacking (for instance, changing the home page without your consent, and you can't set it back to what you want) are symptoms of a spyware infestation.

Avoiding spyware

1. Do not, I repeat, do not use Internet Explorer. Really. This is the most important part. Use Mozilla Firefox (my personal favorite), Mozilla, Opera or Konqueror. Explorer is unsafe, and malicious sites can use it to install dangerous software on your PC without your knowledge. It also lacks many modern features such as browser tabs. In fact, you should not use IE even if spyware didn't exist - but spyware by itself is also enough reason to use a decent browser instead of Explorer.
2. Do not use Outlook Express. Much like IE, it's insecure. Use something like Mozilla Thunderbird (http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/), or a webmail like Gmail or Yahoo! Mail.
3. Do not use Outlook, unless it is forced upon you. And if so, see below for Office Update.
4. 4. Turn Windows' automatic updates on, and make sure they are working (you should be warned about critical updates from time to time). Install all of them.
5. If you have Microsoft Office installed, go to Office Update (http://office.microsoft.com) from time to time, and keep Office updated.
6. Have a decent anti-virus installed.
7. If you're not behind a firewall, install a decent one on your PC, or, even better, keep it behind one (preferably not a Windows machine)
8. Beware of what you install. Many programs advertised as "free" install spyware along with them. Avoid the following above all:

   • Browser toolbars (they're for Internet Explorer, anyway, so you won't need them, right?)
   • Anything related to a purple monkey
   • Anything, in a web page, that pretends to be a Windows error message (e.g. "Warning: your PC is unoptimized!!!")

9. Install Ad-Aware (see link below), keep it updated and run it from time to time, deleting any spyware it finds.

Note: a non-firewalled, non-updated Windows PC connected to the Internet gets infected by worms (*) in minutes - far less than the time it takes to update it. If you have such a PC in your hands, think hard before connecting it to the internet - if you can't install a firewall software on it (from a CD, you can't connect to the net before you are protected, remember?), take it to a friend with a NATted LAN (your geek friend will know what that means), and update it there.

(*) worms are not spyware, but they can, among other things, install spyware on your computer (and, besides, do even more harm than spyware)

Removing spyware

1. Install Ad-Aware

   • run it
   • check for updates
   • check for spyware
   • remove any it finds

2. Install Spybot Search & Destroy

   • run it
   • check for updates
   • check for spyware
   • remove any it finds

3. Reboot
4. Do the first 2 steps again.

• if neither program finds any spyware this time, you are clean. Come on, breathe in relief. :)
• if, however, any of them still finds spyware, repeat everything one more time. If there is still spyware, then removing it is beyond the scope of this page... Look around in Google, or ask a geek friend, or format and reinstall everything.

Note

Spyware is strictly a Microsoft Windows problem; you can forget about all of this if you use another operating system, such as Linux or MacOS.

Pedro Timoteo is a 31-year-old Portuguese systems administrator, webmaster and blogger. He lives in Tercena, Portugal. He maintains a technology blog called "The Tlog".