Thursday, August 5, 2010

Your Basic Guide to Spyware


Spyware is a forever changing entity. Innovative coders are always changing and evolving their programs to create more malicious software. The following FAQ gives you everything that you need to know about spyware.

Q. What exactly is spyware?
Spyware is malicious software with the main purpose of tracking your internet usage and actions. Spyware works away in the background of your computer without your knowledge. It follows every stroke that you make on your keyboard. This information is then captured and sent back to the creator(s).

Q. What does spyware do?
The most basic of spyware programs can track all your online activities. It also tracks all your browsing habits. Your information is processed on a remote site which will determine your interests from your browsing history. This can be a very serious threat.

Q. How can spyware harm me?
Spyware comes with a wide range of issues for you and your computer system. Spyware is designed to generate pop-up ads, spam and other advertisement related content. Spyware aims its pop-up ads to your browsing tastes. If you browse a lot of athletic related websites, the adverts generated will be catered towards sore muscle remedies and heartbeat monitors etc. There is an advantage to this as you do receive mails about topics that you are interested in. However the sheer amount of spam that can be received can clog up your inbox.

Spyware gets at every aspect of your computer down to your internet speed. By communicating with its remote server to feed back and forth information, spyware can majorly disrupt your regular computer functions.

Spyware can cause 'browser hijacking' which can do a variety of things. It can change the main page on your browser, edit the titles on your favourites or add new buttons to your existing browser toolbar.

Spyware can be a main cause of system crashes and the damage that is caused is directly determined by the amount of spyware installed on your computer.

Q. What is adware?
Adware is a type of software that has the main purpose of collecting information based on the computer users browsing. Adware commonly comes with free programs that you may download such as KaZaa, Grokster, Gator etc.

Q. Can adware infect my computer?
When you download any free program from the internet there is a high probability that your computer will become infected with adware.

Q. How do I deal with spyware?
It is of the utmost important to install an anti-spyware program. You must always make sure that the program is developed by reputed companies. You can download free programs from the internet but there is a risk factor associated with these downloads as you may download the wrong program and make the problem worse.
Has your computer slowed down to a crawl yet again? Maybe it's time for you to look at the best spyware software solutions so that you can get back to enjoying your online time again? If you want to learn more about killing off spyware at http://www.cpusecurity.com/spyware/

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