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| How do I get rid of Spyware |
| Posted: 30-04-2006 | Views: 23 |
| Author: Bill Nadraszky |
Spyware and adware is a big
issue today and the problem is only going to get bigger
over the next few years. To understand how to rid your
computer of spyware you have to first understand why it
is being created in the first place so why don’t we look
at that.
Companies in the past created spyware as a service to
their advertisers. What would happen is you would install
an application that you thought was cute or useful like
Bonzai buddy or Comet Cursors and you used this knowing
that it was free. What you did not know was that these
“free” programs in fact were tracking all of the websites
that you were going to and then sending back the information
to the company that created the application, this seemed
to be bad but not many people were too concerned. After
the companies got this information on your surfing habits
then they would change the ads on web pages, this is adware,
so that they were targeting topics that you had shown
interest in, and of course those companies were picking
up the advertising dollars for placing those ads on your
computer.
Now that you can see the basics of how spyware is created
and why you can imagine how lucrative a business it is
to create spyware. In fact the company that was Gator
is now called Claria and made profits of $100 million
last year. Since there is so much money to be made in
the spyware business there are always a lot of new spyware
being released. All of this spyware is probably really
slowing down your computer and breaking your applications.
There are a lot of ways that a computer can get spyware
and its cousin Adware. The most popular ways right now
are still by installing programs that have the spyware
embedded directly into it and is launched as soon as you
install the program. Other ways to get spyware are from
visiting webpages that drop Active X controls on your
computer or run javascripts and even sometimes from objects
placed within emails.
Most of the time getting spyware and getting rid of spyware
is not very difficult but it takes some work on the user’s
part, that’s you! There are several programs out there
that will get rid of the spyware and adware but the two
that are most common are Spybot and AdAware both of these
programs are free to download and free to use. I have
used Spybot and Adaware for years now and I never use
just one of the two, I always use both as they seem to
each catch spyware and adware that the other does not.
In the end you can not always rely on just one or two
free programs but even just using these two free products
will often make a big difference to speeding up and securing
your computer. When you are ready you can look around
and often find one or more great programs that will do
it all in one place and do a better job at that.
For more information on getting rid of Spyware please
visit my
spyware removal information page
This article is free for republishing
Article Source: http://www.articlealley.com/ |
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