TechgnosisWeb Prime

If you use Windows at all (and especially if you use IE), you’ve probably run into spyware: nasty little programs that take over your browser, install themselves on your computer, download all their friends, and make your computer slower, less stable, and more full of annoying ads. And if you’ve run into spyware, you’ve probably looked around for a spyware removal program. If so, be careful, as many so-called ’spyware removal’ tools are actually made by the spyware makers themselves, to take your money and leave open doors for even more spyware to come in.

So which spyware blockers are good, and which are evil? Perhaps not surprisingly, the vast majority of spyware blockers are the bad kind. You might want to check this page to see which ones are good and which are bad: http://www.spywarewarrior.com/rogue_anti-spyware.htm. However, as a public service to readers of this blog, I’m gonna go ahead and point out the tools I’ve found to be most effective in preventing spyware from getting into my computer, and removing it when it manages to sneak in anyway. These are all mentioned on that page as ‘good’ spyware removal tools, they’re all free, or have free versions available, and I highly recommend them to any Windows user:

• Ad-Aware: With a free version available, this is one of the first, and one of the best, spyware blockers out there. Fast, powerful scanning, and the ability to quarantine files before removal, and resotring of files if you make a mistake.
• SpyBot Search & Destroy: Another great weapon in the arsenal against spyware, it scans, detects, and removes thousands of spyware programs. Anything Ad-Aware might miss, SpyBot will catch, and viceversa.
• JavaCool’s SpywareBlaster and SpywareGuard: a pair of free utilities that can keep your computer from getting infected with spyware in the first place. SpywareBlaster does a bang-up job of closing the security holes that many spyware programs exploit to get into your computer in the first place, while SpywareGuard acts like an antivirus, scanning anything that comes into your computer to determine wether it has any spyware hidden inside.

Generally, if you’re serious about keeping spyware off your machine, you’ll want all four of those applications installed and updated on a weekly basis. Between SpywareBlaster and SpywareGuard bringing up all your shields, and Ad-Aware and SpyBot patrolling your computer to kill any invaders, it’s about as secure as you’re going to get.

And before I forget, if you want to eliminate the two main sources of infection for spyware, malware, and viruses, ditch IE and Outlook Express and switch to Firefox and Thunderbird. Your computer will thank you for it.