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For those who haven't yet had an encounter with spyware, lucky you. These little demons are worse than viruses in many ways and can bring your computer to its knees, get you branded as a spammer, or at the very least invade your privacy and waste your time.
Spyware programs work behind the scenes, collecting and sending information about your browsing habits, delivering advertising you didn't ask for, and interfering with the normal operation of your machine. They can add toolbars that you didn't install, run programs and even alter your system settings.
Some spyware is clever enough to hide in the nooks and crannies of your hard drive if it senses you trying to remove it, making it devilishly hard to evict.
How Spyware Gets Into Your Machine
Spyware files are often bundled together with other software downloads so many users don't even know they're getting these sneaky programs. Or users unwittingly invite them into their machines, believing they're getting something else. That's what happened to me.
Some friends had been trying for weeks to convince me to download an anti-spyware program but I ignored their advice, thinking them overly concerned.
Soon after their warning, I got hit. Unlike a virus, with spyware you may not even know you've been hit. I only found out when my ISP shut down my email account. Their technicians told me spyware on my machine had been flooding their servers for several days, all happening in the background while my PC was busy working for me in the foreground.
Fighting Off The Attack
On their advice, I downloaded a frëe anti-spyware program from the net, cleaned my system, got the ISP to reinstate my service, and went back to work.
Three days later, it happened again. I downloaded yet another anti-spyware program and began religiously running both programs, every day. This time, it took a lot longer to convince my ISP to restore my service. The whole fiasco cost me three days of work and a lot of frustration.
How did it happen? I had recently upgraded to Windows XP and was still getting acquainted with all its new bells and whistles when a little, official-looking pop-up appeared one day (looking for all the world like a Microsoft message window) asking if I'd like to have all sp@m filtered from my Outlook Express emails. Would I! Figuring it was a Windows XP feature, I clicked.
And with that one innocent click, I unwittingly downloaded a program that I realized later had been launched not from my operating system but from a website I had been visiting. It gave me a new toolbar I didn't ask for and a hundred or so spyware files that quickly went to work getting me into hot water with my ISP.
But that was nothing compared to what happened to my brother.
Beware Fake Anti-Spyware Programs
Recently, he was surfing on his business computer when a message warned him that spyware had been detected and he urgently needed software to remove it. He clicked, unleashing a vicious program masquerading as anti-spyware but that was actually a parasite program that ran constantly, locking up his entire system.
This program did everything possible to prevent its removal. It blocked the downloading of genuine anti-spyware software; it substituted one of its own advertising pop-up pages every time the browser was opened; it prevented the download of pop-up blocking software; and much more. The PC became so deeply infected that its programs no longer ran normally and the unit had to be professionally debugged.
So if you think, as I used to, that you're savvy to the ways of the web and are invulnerable to spyware... you may not be.
How To Fend Off Spyware:
1. Be extremely cautious when considering a download of any kind. In this game, it's hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys. Many legitimate frëe programs include spyware in their downloads... it's how they pay the bills. Read the license agreement carefully before proceeding.
2. Get some good anti-spyware software as soon as possible. (See my suggestions below). Run it frequently.
3. Be suspicious if you are offered a frëe demo version that requires you to pay for the full version before it will remove any spyware it finds on your system. The best anti-spyware software is totally frëe and you get the full working version.
4. Only use anti-spyware that has been recommended by your ISP or another trusted source. There are many scammers out there doing a convincing job of representing themselves as legit. Google and the other search engines have no way of separating these fakes from the real thing, so don't rely on search engine results to guide you.
5. Don't be hoodwinked by brand name sleight-of-hand, eg: Ada-ware instead of the excellent anti-spyware product Ad-aware.
Following is a list of useful sites that can help you to get rid of spyware.
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