Well, if you’re like 90% of people in the Windows environment, you need and/or desire to know how to get rid of spyware. (By the way, haughty Apple users: you, too, can get infected by spyware. But it is rare, for most computers are running on a Windows environment, and so those who are the evil genius computer programmers naturally target the bigger potential base for dirty deeds.) For those of you who might have heard about this nefarious trash but aren’t sure what it is, spyware is what it sounds like it is: it sneaks onto your computer via some download or website that you clicked something in and then it lurks in the background. While it is lurking, it does any number of wicked, vile things depending on what it has been programmed to do.
For instance, one kind of spyware is the dreaded key logger program. This works by recording every one of your keystrokes. These are then transmitted back to a remote site where they are transcribed and read by the data collecting spy. This can be used to figure out your passwords, your personal ID information, many of the websites you visit, and even more intimate things like sexual conversations you have with your boyfriend or girlfriend or stuff pertaining to your medical records.
Spyware is always used, somehow, for exploitation. Someone wants to know something about you that either they shouldn’t or they don’t think you would willingly reveal to them. So, they get sneaky. How can you tell if your computer has spyware on it? Well, there are a number of ways:
* Your computer suddenly starts running noticeably more slowly
* You suddenly begin having a difficult or slow time booting up
* Programs that you run all the time without any problem suddenly begin crashing
* Unfamiliar programs suddenly start appearing in your system tray or just start running
* Lights on your computer suddenly start blinking, lighting up far more frequently, or lighting and going out in a strange pattern
There are some worse ways of finding out, too, such as if your bank account is suddenly drained. So, what do you need to understand in order to know how to get rid of spyware?
Have a spyware scanner on your computer all the time
When you first buy a Windows environment computer, you will probably have two months of MacAfee free of charge. Use that for the first two months, and whenever it tells you there are updates available be sure to download them. You can decide at the end of the two months if you want to pay for it and keep it. Many people prefer to get rid of it at that point and replace it with something like AVG. AVG is always free in its basic versions, which is good enough to run a daily scan on your computer to check for anything suspicious. If anything is found and you are running the free version, you’ll have to pay to have the spyware removed.
But the anti-spyware software that’s considered to be the best by many is LavaSoft. It’s well worth the price. Microsoft also has its Windows Defender out there in Beta format right now. MS has a reputation for only releasing Beta versions of things when the programs are quite stable, so you can use Defender in good faith. No Windows OS computer should be without some kind of spyware scanner.
An Ounce of Spyware Prevention is Worth a Pound of Spyware Removal
Don’t use most P2P file sharing programs. Be especially wary of them if they are free. If they are free, the companies that produce them have to be making money in some other way, and they do this by attaching adware to them and trying to sell other things. While adware is not illegal, some adware is actually a disguise for spyware. The P2P company may not even realize that its adware has been tampered with and turned into spyware. The P2P file sharing program Ares, however, seems to be a safe program of its kind to use.
Don’t download unusual toolbars. The Yahoo toolbar is very good and not a problem. But we aren’t talking about big-name toolbars like that. We mean those that have names which are rather unrecognized. These are typically spyware-infested programs that are stealing your personal data. Among these, however, is one called My Websearch, which you get if you download Smiley Central for access to a vast array of really great emoticons. I’ve personally never had any problems with My Websearch, but then again I don’t use it for searching the Internet and I never click on anything in it except for Smiley Central.
Download all the updates for Windows as they become available. They are there to help protect against spyware. Also use the most updated version of your browser. The safe browsers to use include: Windows Internet Explorer; Opera; Firefox; and Java VM.
Do not click on any pop-ups that advertise that they have detected or will scan for spyware (unless they are a window from an anti-spyware program that you knowingly installed). This is a clever ruse: they are spyware.
So, the best way of knowing how to remove spyware is knowing how to prevent it from taking hold in the first place. But if it ever does slip through, have your spyware scanner and/or removal programs running on your computer and doing scans at least once every 24 hours for you. When they scan they will run in the background and not interfere with your other programs.
Tags: Spyware