Thursday, December 20, 2007

How to Get Rid of those Pesky Spywares

Every once in a while somebody will bring his/her computer here in my shop with the problem of spyware/adware. It is also fairly common for me to see this problem when i'm doing a house call.

All PC user who uses the internet are vulnerable to this problem. We are all exposed to spywares/adwares whenever we are online especially for those people who likes to go to untrusted sites/p*rn sites.What are the steps to prevent this problem? If you computer is already infected, what should you do to clean it up?

First and foremost, dumped your Internet Explorer. In fairness, IE7 is a lot better than its predecessors but it is still vulnerable to most common spywares. It is the common target of Spyware Programmers. I suggest using alternatives like Firefox or Opera as your main browser. By doing this, you will limit the chance of getting an adware/spyware by almost 80% (in my opinion).

Second, use your common sense. This is the ultimate protection for spywares/adwares or even viruses on the wild. When your surfing the net, and suddenly a popup appears in front of you, saying that you have won something or you need to install this and that, please ignore it. Don't ever click that OK button if you don't know what you're doing.

Third, install Spyware Blaster (you can download it here).

Don't worry it's free and it works. It offers great passive protection against spywares. It will never slow your computer because it doesn't perform active scans or intercept threats, but instead uses a variety of methods to seal off vulnerable areas of your PC. It restricts your browser to access known bad sites. It also closes security loopholes on your PC so that prevalent threats will never have an access to your system. But Spyware Blaster should never be used by itself. It works great when you use it alongside other Anti-Spyware softwares.

So what Anti-Spyware softwares are best for your system, especially if you are already infected or just want to have protection from these threats?

Freeware:
1. Spybot Search & Destroy - After all these years, it is still one of the best freeware software out there in getting rid of spyware/adware. I always have this program on my flash drive, as a technician, you will never know when you will need it.


2. Ad-Aware 2007 Free - Works very well alongside Spybot S&D. I encountered several spywares that spybot cannot detect but adaware can and vice versa. There is also a paid version, the Ad-aware Plus which costs $26.95


Other programs:
3. Spyware Doctor - This program got the top honor in the latest CPU Magazine along with Spy Sweeper in getting rid of those spywares. According to their test, Spyware Doctor rooted every spyware in all of their test without reporting any false positives.


4. Spy Sweeper - One of the best commercial antispyware package out there. Also included is an integrated keylogger detector.


The downside of these two programs is, it is not free. I'm an advocate of freeware and open source softwares, so Spybot and Adaware is my top choice along with Spyware blaster. But if you really need the best antispyware out there, and you can shell out some money, Spy Sweeper and Spyware Doctor are excellent programs.

Don't forget that before using any of these programs, you need to make sure that it is updated. These programs are only good if your using the latest one.


Any suggestion, question or violent reaction? Feel free to leave a comment.

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