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Is Spyware Slowing Your Computer Down To A Crawl?
By George Peirson, Thu Dec 8th
Everyday more and more computers are becoming infected withSpyware and Adware (advertising tracking). No matter where yougo on the web, someone is trying to sneak something on yourcomputer. From honest web sites placing simple logon cookies, topaid advertising tracking your movements on the web, tomalicious software that is designed to record your keystrokesand discover your passwords, and Adware have togetherbecome the web’s number one problem. Many of these programs are down right dangerous and seriouslythreaten your online privacy and identity. But even the simpleand supposedly benign Adware programs can cause you seriousproblems. Spyware is any program that installs itself onto your computerwith the intent to spy on your activity. This can be recordingyour online searching habits, or whatever you type on yourkeyboard. Adware is not much better. It is designed to watchwhat you do online, where you go, which terms you search for andthen report this to the ad agency that runs the adware program.
Adware programs may be designed with the best intentions inmind, but even these can cause your computer serious problems. Here is what happens. Many, if not most, advertisers on theinternet will try and place a cookie or other small program onyour computer. Many will add code that will track that cookie asit hits different pages. The code may be designed simply togather anonymous data, or it may be trying to send ads to yourbrowser that the advertising company thinks you will be morelikely to respond to. Whatever the case, the Adware or is using your computerto do its tracking. This means that part of your computer’spower and CPU cycles are being diverted away from the activityyou are trying to perform. Your computer is being used bysomeone else instead to track your movements. Now, when wemultiply this behavior by tens or hundreds of Adware or Spywareprograms all trying to use your computer for their work you canbegin to see the problem. These programs can literally slow your computer down to a crawl,or make it
crash altogether. They can fill your computer up withtrash files, open unwanted popup windows, use up the space inyour internet cache and generally just make working on yourcomputer a nightmare. Luckily there are several easy solutions to the problem. Butfirst let me make one distinction, and Adware are notthe same thing as a computer virus. Although a computer viruscan install on a computer, you will need different toolsto remove a computer virus and to keep your system clean fromSpyware and Adware. You should be using both a high qualitycommercial anti-virus program and one or more good qualityprograms for handling the spyware/adware problem. There are several good Spyware/adware programs on the market. Iuse two different programs on my network, Ad-aware from Lavasoftand Spy Sweeper from Webroot Software although there are severalothers. You can easily find both of these by doing an internetsearch for Ad-aware and Spy Sweeper. Or simply do a search forspyware. Both of these programs will scan your hard drives andregistry and present you with a list of spyware/adware programshiding on your system. You can then quarantine or remove theoffending programs. I use both of these programs since neitherone seems to catch everything. Plus I will run them 2 or moretimes in a row, the nastier will not be completelyremoved on the first pass. The process is very easy and I recommend running these programsat least once a week and every time you have been doing someextended web surfing. You will be surprised at how many of thesespyware/adware programs will sneak onto your system. I run avery clean network and I have yet to scan my system and not comeup with at least a few of these hiding on my hard drive. So be aware of the problem, take reasonable precautions, scanyour system frequently, and the spyware/adware curse can bebroken. Copyright 2005 - George Peirson About the author:George Peirson is a successful Entrepreneur, Internet Trainerand author of over 30 multimedia based tutorial training titles.Read more articles by George Peirson at www.howtogurus.com/free-articles.html
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