What is Spyware?
I have lost count of the number of times that we have been called out to repair a personal computer and found that the system was damaged by “Spyware”. Spyware is Internet jargon for Advertising Supported software (Adware).
Advertising Spyware is software that is installed alongside other software or via ActiveX controls on the internet, often without the user’s knowledge, or without full disclosure that it will be used for gathering personal information and/or showing the user ads. Advertising Spyware logs information about the user, possibly including passwords, email addresses, web browsing history, online buying habits, the computer’s hardware and software configuration, the name, age, sex, etc of the user.
In addition to privacy and security concerns, resource-hogging Adware and Spyware can cause system and browser instability and slowness.
Here are a couple of scenarios indicating a Spyware “infection”.
– Scenario 1:
Your search engine is New: Google. You visit the Google website and do your search. All of a sudden you have advertisements popping up all over your...