Ok, so what about Spyware?
Spyware Solutions page
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Spyware is such a great waste of programming talent. The people that write this stuff have to know quite a bit about the computer platform they are attacking.
Spyware is mostly a problem on the PC platform, although there are supposed to be some of these programs that run on the Mac platform. You should NEVER surf the ‘Net without a good antivirus and spyware solution in place. There are a number of programs that cover both possible forms of attack, and these are usually a good choice as one program fills both needs.
On Windows computers, I prefer to have an antivirus program AND at least one, if not two different spyware scanners. This, in addition to a software or hardware firewall, gives you REASONABLE protection from the bad guys.
On the Mac
Although spyware is not as common on the Mac, you can still get hit by tracking cookies and some spyware that is Mac-specific.
One Mac solutions is:
° MacScan
Norton Antivirus for mac also seems to do a fairly nice job of catching spyware in addition to the virus infections it finds.
On the PC
Since the PC market is so large, and the number of spyware are relative in size, there are several solutions for this platform:
° Adaware
Spybot Search and Destroy is the only one of the tools listed above that is free. Since spyware is so prevalent, you may have to pay for your protection. I have personally used Spybot S&D with good results. It has two tools that any spyware protection SHOULD have - a scanner to look for problems and a special resident program called Tea Timer. This program runs in the background, monitoring any changes to your system’s registry. This will often catch a lot of spyware and some virus problems when the installation occurs. The only problem with this is that you are constantly being asked about whether to allow a registry change. The only time it is a real headache is when installing a new software program.
Most of these walk you through the installation and do a scan prior to, or immediately after installation. You should update the definitions file for any of these as soon as possible. In some cases, the program automatically requests to do the update. As with anti-virus software, the level of safety is directly proportional to the age of the update.
Scan the entire computer. If any problems are found, scan again. I recommend scanning until there are no more malware programs found.