31Dec Adware and Spyware - The What, The How and The Solution

Computer users in the past had been much more wary of viruses, however these days, spyware is much more ubiquitous. If you have not heard of either of these terms, I don’t blame you, they are fairly new phenomenon plaguing the internet. They do infact work similarly to a virus in the fact that they infect certain programs of your computer, making the functionality of these programs and your operating system/whole computer less than it should be. I will run through a few of the tell-tale signs that evidence the presence of adware on your computer. I will also run through the ways in which they can come to be on your computer and lastly I will briefly run through a few of the main ways to rid your computer this plauge.

Signs that adware is on your computer:

- The homepage of your internet browser has been changed without you doing it
- Strange and random websites appear in your favourites and reappear even

when you delete them
- Your computer speed is slower than normal
- Many pop up advertisements even when you are not connected to the internet

Now you are aware of a few of the symptoms, and there are many more, usually relating to your internet browser, it is useful to know how this spyware and adware has come upon your system. They can appear on your system through a variety of ways:

- Through emails with a mysterious attachment and once you open the

email, the spyware/adware goes to infect your computer
- Contracted via some websites, usually bad websites with lots of pop-ups.

Content is occasionally downloaded that has spyware and adware and these

infect your system
- Can be unknowingly attached to software you download

Now you are aware of the how and what of infections, it is now time to look towards a cure. There are several, most likely atleast 1000’s of adware programs out there to rid your computer of them. However lots of these programs are not written by professionals, especially the ‘free’ programs. Nothing in this world is free, if it’s free, then it’s most likely not a quality product. Not only are you looking for a program that is very effective in removing the spyware from your system, but you also are looking for a program that is able to monitor your behaviour on the internet and prevent any incoming spyware or adware.

A review of the Top 6 list of spyware adware programs is available at http://scoste.bezoogle.com/pp/adware/

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