Skip to main content

Fighting SpyWare

What is one of the most insidious things these days? SpyWare.

From the subtle to the insidious to the nasty.

Subtle as sending simple information about you and your computer, things like your connection speed. This isn't too bad if you know and agree. But sometimes they tell you about it in the middle of some long annoying agreement form that almost nobody fully reads or understands.

Insidious things like Gator that download extra components and send back extra data that most people done even know is happening.

Nasty things, that hijack your home page, rewrite your host files, and do who knows what other nasty things.

In a lot of cases, you computer can start to slow down and even have a lot more unexpected crashes due to spyware that loads every time you boot up.

What can you do about it? There are a number of SpyWare scanning and cleaning programs out there. I use 2 of them:

AdAware and SpyBot - Search and Destroy

In both cases, you always want to check for updates. I run them both about once a week or so. In theory they might even catch a virus on your computer too!

Each has their own strength and weaknesses.
AdAware is better at killing cookies - sometimes a little too good. I've had to add a couple of cookies I don't want it to kill, and I think it is killing some of my AvantGo cookies.

Spybot finds some more spyware - but has a less intuitive interface. It is worth figuring it out.

One of them found that the game playing system in the latest version of AIM has spyware. So I let it get rid of it too.

In both cases, they don't out-and-out delete things; they make a list you can update and move stuff to a quarantine location, which you can delete at a later time if you want.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Hiking Blodgett Peak 12/25/2005

So Christmas day Sunday, but we don't do Christmas. And a day off Monday. No real plans until Sunday evening for Channukah. My toe finally feels well enough for a hike. Blodgett Peak has been calling to me for months - especially since I learned there was a geocache on top. So I get up a bit early - early for a day off from work - and head out for a hike. I don't know how far I'll get - but I want to at least get to the top of Blodgett Peak. I've got about 8 geocaches I can try for, depending on how I do. A couple are up in Pike National Forrest, past Blodgett Peak. It is slower going than I expected. I spend more time than I wanted looking for the first 4 geocaches - I only found 2 of them. The trail is Icy and muddy. It is not a great trail - it is not well prepared like the trail going up Pikes Peak. It is very easy to lose the trail - subtle paths seem to go off in many directions. In many places, the trail seems to go up very steep, loose gravel. Step...

1000 Greatest Movies

Found on Misanthropic-Tendencies From the NY Times - The Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made I've highlighted the ones I've seen from the list. As it is a big list, I've set it to be hidden. I've added some favorite quotes to ones I've seen. Show/Hide the list below A À Nous la Liberté (1932) About Schmidt (2002) Absence of Malice (1981) Adam’s Rib (1949) Adaptation (2002) The Adjuster (1991) The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) Affliction (1998) The African Queen (1952) L’Age d’Or (1930, reviewed 1964) Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972, reviewed 1977) A.I. (2001) Airplane! (1980) "I picked the wrong week to give up sniffing glue" Aladdin (1992) "Poof! Whaddya want?" Alexander Nevsky (1939) Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1975) Alice’s Restaurant (1969) Aliens (1986) '...In space no one can hear you scream.' All About Eve (1950) All About My Mother (1999) All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) All That...

I Voted, Colorado

Voting is different here in Colorado than it was back on the East Coast. In New Jersey, and I remember it was the same basic things when my parents voted in New York, the voting was in a mechanical voting booth. You would go to a desk and sign the big book. The would give you a sheet of paper. You would take the paper over to a voting machine. An assistant would take the paper and put it somewhere on the side of the machine. You would pull a big mechanical handle that would close the curtain behind you. Then you would flip the levers to indicate your vote. After, you would push the big handle, which would record your vote, reset the levers and open the curtain. Here in Colorado, the beginning of the process is the same. You wait on line and sign the big book. I went with my wife, as she dropped her car off for service. At first she was going to vote before she dropped off her car. But she called me to tell me the line was an hour long. After I picked her up at the shop,...