Fighting Spyware

Spyware is a major pain for many web surfers on the internet. So, you may be wondering what Spyware is. Its a program that surreptitiously monitors your actions. While they are sometimes sinister, like a remote control program used by a hacker, software companies have been known to use Spyware to gather data about customers. The practice is generally frowned upon.

So what can you do to help fight this problem? There are a few programs that you can download to scan your hard drive to see if you have any Spyware already infected on your system. Ad-aware is a great program to try. Another one that might be worth checking out is spychecker.com. Other things that I do is personalizing my cookie preferences. I block all 3rd party cookies, and session cookies, but prompt first party cookies. This helps in blocking most of the Spyware, but some still manages to get through. Its always good to have a reliable antivirus program, avast Antivirus has a good free version. McAfee SiteAdvisor is another program that will let you know of any potentially bad sites. And one last extension for Firefox is mywot.com

http://www.antispywarecoalition.org/documents/safetytips.htm

Microsoft has some information on fighting spyware.