What is spyware?

Spyware is the term used for a computer program that watches what you do on your computer. It usually will collect information about sites you go to on the Internet, the kinds of programs you run, and perhaps even your personal contact information. Then it passes this back to a company that uses that information to send targeted advertising to you, in the form of spam (junk email) or popup ads in your web browser.

Even if you're not concerned about your privacy, or even if you like getting all the extra advertising, spyware is a problem, for two reasons. First, it slows down your computer, as it accesses the information in your web browser's history files to know where you've been surfing. Second, some spyware tends to bring other spyware with it, installing other programs that do similar kinds of monitoring on your computer. This makes your computer even slower, since more than one program can be trying to get to the same information on your computer at the same time. Imagine if three people got to the office coffee pot before you did - it would slow you down until they all got out of the way!

There are some kinds of spyware that are more malicious, capturing everything you type, in an attempt to grab passwords, credit card numbers, and other important information.

How does spyware get on your computer?

You may have seen a window pop up on your screen that said, "Your computer may have spyware on it. Click here to fix it!" Or perhaps you've seen some other invitation to download a neat game or cute artwork to put into your emails. Clicking on the links in these popups can cause programs to be installed without you really knowing about it. They may seem innocent enough, but they're really giving you more than you asked for. There are even some programs that claim to fight spyware, when they're actually spyware themselves!

The U.S. Government is trying to do something about the deceptive practices of some of the advertising companies that use spyware and other methods to get your information. However, it will be a while until the laws can really make a difference.

How do you get rid of it?

If you know that a program is spyware, you can try to uninstall it, if it includes an uninstaller. Or you can use the Add/Remove Programs control panel to uninstall spyware programs. But you may not always know which programs on your computer are spyware, and some spyware programs don't even let you know that they're on your system!

For this reason, it's most useful to install an anti-spyware program and use it on a regular basis. These programs scan your system for traces of spyware, and remove them from your system. The anti-spyware companies update their program with information about any new spyware programs that come out, and let you download updates to keep your system free from problems. You can think of anti-spyware programs in the same way as you think of antivirus programs, except that they work on different kinds of problems.

There are a lot of programs out there that for this; some are good, and some are not so good. I like to use Ad-Aware, from LavaSoft ( http://www.lavasoft.com ). Ad-Aware is a commercial product, but LavaSoft has a version that is free for personal use. The paid version will run in the background, always watching your system for new spyware problems. The free version requires that you run it manually to scan your system.

The antivirus companies are starting to use their technology to combat spyware - it's a pretty good fit for them, actually. They just have to broaden the scope of their antivirus programs to look for different kinds of files when they scan, and they can do as good a job as any other program. Norton Antivirus 2005 includes anti-spyware capabilities, as does McAfee VirusScan 9.0.

One thing that you need to do when you're running anti-spyware programs is that it is best to run them in Windows' Safe Mode. Some spyware programs can hide themselves from anti-spyware programs if the spyware is actively running. In Safe Mode, Windows does not load all of the startup files and system drivers it normally uses; spyware loads with startup files, so in Safe Mode, it won't run, and it can't hide.

One note of caution.

I have seen three situations in which removing spyware (even in Safe Mode) made the computer unable to get to the Internet. Some spyware apparently ties itself tightly into the network software in Windows, and when it gets removed, it disables all networking. If this happens, you will have some work to do to get your system running again. On Windows 9x or ME, you can reinstall the networking components of Windows; on Windows NT, 2000, or XP, it can require you to reinstall Windows. Either way, it's a little tricky.

Conclusion.

Spyware isn't going away soon, so we have to find ways to deal with it. A good anti-spyware program can fix things, but it's best to keep in mind how easy it is for these programs to get onto our systems if we're not paying attention to what's coming up on the screen. Learn to research whether a particular program is a reputable one, by reading technology websites, doing Google searches on them, and asking your friendly neighborhood computer consultant. And always keep Windows up-to-date using the Windows Update service.