Preventing Spyware from Installing Itself on YOUR Computer

How did this happen? At some point while she was browsing normally, a window had opened up asking her a yes or no question, similar to what she had seen dozens of times before -- to upgrade RealAudio, for instance, such a window will appear, and most people will click "yes" without even thinking. But this time, it was actually a program asking her to click "yes" and thereby install this advertising program onto her computer.

It's scary to think that things are being added to your computer without your knowledge... but it's a fact, and you need to take precautions against it.

Postings to several online discussion groups regarding what she should do lead to many recommendations for the utility called "Ad-aware," which did, indeed, fix this online volunteer's problem. Ad-aware detects and removes spyware and other nasty covert programs from your computer system. A free download of Ad-aware is available at lavasoftusa.com and download.com

Other suggestions that were helpful to this online volunteer regarding this spyware problem:

• Use the Add/Remove Control Panel applet -- there may be something obvious there that should be uninstalled.

• Download Spybot Search and Destroy, which is like Ad-aware, but which also add known spyware / trojan sites to your computer's 'Hosts' file, thereby making them inaccessible and preventing reinfection by the same sites in the future. You can download this software from: lurkhere's nicefiles

• clean out the temp directory

Consider investigating and adding anti-advertising software to your computer, and always read a window careful before clicking "yes." When in doubt, click "no;" if it was a program you really did want, you will be asked the same question again.

 
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