Created: February 1, 2001
Last Updated: June 29, 2005
SPYWAREStay away from ISP's and programs that support the use of Spyware!
If you don't believe what I have been telling you for years then have a look at the articles in the January 2002 Vol. 13 of Smart Computing
Maybe it's not big brother you should be watching out for.
It might just be that so-called free stuff you like to use, or your friends say you should use.
Have you ever thought about what someone can do to your computer if they had a program running inside your firewall under their complete control?
And for the places that display the trust symbol...did you know they pay for that symbol to put on their page? Maybe the more you pay the more trustworthy you become?!
These few programs will help out in detecting and removing SpyWare programs that are known at this time. Right now there are over 78,000 SpyWare programs out there but only approximately 30,000 are scanned; for the rest of them you just have to stop clicking the "accept". Please read carefully before you click.
This will be the newest recommended SpyWare scanner - SpyBot - and please use the update feature!! You might want to try the new immunize feature as well. This version looks a little different than the 1.2 but still works the best.
Visit their website for much more information on SpyWare.
AdAware had it's time when it dropped the ball and started to let some SpyWare programs install but now they seem to be back in the game.
I have noticed between the two of them I have seen one miss what the other will find, so run both of them.
Oh look!!! Imagine this...from the people that allowed the infiltration of SpyWare now comes a program to protect you from it. Microsoft's Windows® Defender Only works on XP/2000/2003
This is getting ridiculous! But soon there will be no need for SpyWare - the ISP that you belong to will know every move you make, what you send, what you type in chats, what's in your e-mails, websites visited and even controlling what sites you visit. Oh wait...some of them already do.
This program is a firewall and it seems to work real well.
This I would use rather than the other firewalls that come with windows or the popular virus programs.
Don't believe me?
More information about SpyWare