by Wink Junior

Created on: March 13, 2007   Last Updated: April 19, 2007

The first and most important step in keeping spyware (also known as "malware") off your computer(s) is the same as it is for viruses and trojan horses: prevention. Spyware is more or less a "trojan horse": program(s) that install on your computer without your knowledge to do something you most likely do not want them to do and that can cause serious problems or even permanently ruin your system. I will talk about Microsoft Windows systems only in this article since Mac and Linux/UNIX systems do not seem to be as afflicted by the problem.

There are two great products that work well together to help prevent spyware from getting on your system in the first place. Neither one of them catches them all, in my experience, but together they create an almost perfect wall:

1. SpySweeper (Webroot, http://www.webroot.com) - it's no longer a free program although you can download and try a copy from http://www.webroot.com by clicking on the "Start Spyware Scan Now" link, which will allow you to install a trial version. Like most anti-virus software, it costs money to buy and there's a yearly subscription, but I have found it to be worth every penny.

It will run on your system automatically on startup and block 95% of the spyware out there, and it's updated almost daily: as of March 2007, it blocks or removes over 171,000 different spyware programs. It also blocks Web sites that are known to try to install spyware or are the pop-up "adult" types that will open up many windows on your system (it tells you when it's happening, so if you really want to see a Web site, you can tell it to let it open.) I've been using it for over 4 years and their updates for their own program as well as the spyware it blocks and can remove with a "sweep" are very regular. That's the other advantage of this software: you can schedule it to do a "sweep" as often as you want - I have mine set up to sweep every Monday morning at 3AM while I'm sleeping.

2. Spy-Bot Search & Destroy (Spybot, http://www.spybot.info) - this is a free program as well as is updated less often, but it rather than looking for specific spyware, it looks for changes to your system that indicate a likelihood that some kind of malicious software is trying to install. You can download and install it for free, and tou should run it with its two "resident programs" (that means they're running all the time on your system): the "Tea Timer" & "SDHelper", the second one blocks known bad Web sites in Internet Explorer. As of March 2007

• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next Page >>