What is spyware and Adware and where do we get it?
Ok as a computer technician I see alot of things on people's computers and one that I see the most is SPYWARE and ADWARE. Many of you already know what this is but I'll go ahead and explain for those that do not. Spyware and adware are like low level viruses, they come from the internet in the form of free games/programs they're also in most of the cookies in your temporary internet files. If you read these programs EULA's they usually say something about monitoring and ads. You can also get them from clicking one of those grey boxes on a website that asks you a question (I recommend clicking the X to close those instead of yes or no). Spyware sends information about what you do on the internet to a company for marketing research, adware creates "popups" and makes them appear to be coming for the internet sites you are browsing. Also adware will come in the form of "search bars" changing of homepages etc. Spyware and adware destroy bandwidth and can severely effect playing online games.
Understanding MSCONFIG
If you have never scanned for spyware and adware YOU HAVE IT!!! Here are the steps to remove it. First goto the "start" menu and goto "run", now type "msconfig", then goto the startup tab. What you see is a list of programs that feel they need to be running all the time from the moment your computer starts up. Basically you need to look at the "command" column to figure out what programs are running, then you need to disable anything that doesn't need to be running all the time. I usually just have my antivirus/firewall run and disable everything else. If you are having trouble deciding whether you need something you can simply do a google search for its "startup item" name to help figure out what it is and whether you need it.
Scanning for Spyware and Adware.
We use 2 free programs at my work "Spybot S&D" and "ad-aware 6.0" which are completely legitimate. There are several more but these do a good job. Heres the link for
Ad-aware 6.0, also grab the newest reference list for it from the same page. Here's the link for
Spybot - Search & Destroy. These scan your computer for spyware and adware and remove them at you discretion. I suggest letting them remove everything they find.
Preventing spyware and adware
The methods I described are retroactive not proactive. My best recommendation is to STOP USING INTERNET EXPLORER, or any other browser that allows cookies. I recommend
Mozilla Firefox. Also don't install anything from the internet that you are not sure about. Remember NOTHING IS FREE (except maybe XBC). If I missed anything feel free to ad to the discussion.
This post has been edited by streaker68 on Jun 3 2004, 05:28 AM