The Denver Business Journal reports that spyware is on the rise. In a year-end study done by Earthlink and Webroot Software, 116.5 million instances of spyware were found on users computers, an increase of 72% over last year.
Spyware, it for some people it is just a few annoying pop-up ads, for others it could be a serious problem. A friend of mine just spent the last weekend wiping his hard drive installing Windows XP and re-installing all of his software. His windows 98 machine had slowed to a crawl, and despite repeated attempts to remove spyware, he couldn't get rid of it. Would you really want to do that on one of your studio computers?
Below are a few simple and free tools to help protect yourself.
Start with two of the tools listed below to scan your computer. Everyone I have heard from recommends using a couple of different tools, because not every program catches every item.
- Ad-aware, Lavasoft
- Spybot Search & Destroy, PepiMK Software
- Earthlink Spy Audit, a free online service from Earthlink.net
Next install a spyware blocker on your system. This will help prevent future infections. There are many commercial products and quite a few free ones.
- SpywareBlaster, Javacool Software is just one of your options.
Finally, if you have serious problems run HijackThis.
- HijackThis, is a tool, that lists all installed browser add-on, buttons, startup items and allows you to inspect, and optionally remove selected items. The program can create a backup of your original settings and also ignore selected items. Use this one carefully, and if you are not sure if an item should be removed, check with your computer geek friend. (everyone has one)
And no, you are not done yet. Once a month, update your spyware definitions for whatever tools you are using and run them all again. It may seem like a lot of work, but it is definitely better than doing a wipe and re-install.
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