well i feel real safe...

[Sheepdog]

inspired by Hamster's post on the Dorm board, i had Ad Aware scan my computer (Ad Aware is a prog that scans for "spyware" programs that try to leak information about you to folks over the web). it turned out i had 37 spyware components on my computer.

suddenly i am a bit more paranoid.

[Em7add11]

Aren't you glad you checked though? :smile:

[Sheepdog]

yeah

[NSMinistries]

It seems that I have to check it once a week anymore. The first Time I did I had 87. its gone down to about 10 or 11 a week. The new norton securty and utiltes 2003 has helped me prevent alot of them now.

[Patroclus]

The first time I ran it, I had over 100 such crapuscles. Yeah, AdAware is our friend.

[$cirisme]

Part of the reason that it is so high is becauseof cookies. Cookies from DoubleClick, etc. are counted as spyware, and rightfully so.

:bunny:

[Em7add11]

There was a computer here at work that had about 200 spyware items when we checked.

[Undomiel]

I have a great little program now called Spybot, that not only checks for spyware, it allows you to immunize your browser against most spyware. Be careful with it though, you can do all kinds of crazy things with this software, including screw up your registry if you delete registry files. It will tell you which are spywares, and which are registry keys, and which are tracking files. You can safely remove the spyware with it and safely use the immunize feature, but i wouldn't suggest anything else. Of course, it has a rescue feature if by chance you deleted something important and can still access the spybot software, you can restore whatever it was that made your registry go kablooey. It's free, too.

http://spybot.safer-networking.de/

[Patroclus]

I just got rid of seventy-eight more items.

[Sheepdog]

dude, Pat. if it turns out to be mostly cookies, get Mozilla. you can have it block cookies from certains sites (or have it ask your permission before setting cookies-- i liked the feature a lot but it got annoying after a while)

[NSMinistries]

I use the norton block for cookies and also block the ISP's of alot of the pop up ads and such. It seems to have taken care of most of the spyware stuff.

[Em7add11]

That cookie blocking feature has been pretty nice.

[prgmrdave]

Sheepdog:
you can have [Mozilla] block cookies from certains sites (or have it ask your permission before setting cookies-- i liked the feature a lot but it got annoying after a while)

I have IE6 set to ask me about cookies, since it offers to apply my answer to all cookies from that site.

[Em7add11]

I block all cookies from that "Tweb" site. It looks pretty shady.

[$cirisme]

Apparently DDW does too.

[JCA]

Cookie blocking does also work with IE 6.x, and you can set filters etc.. most of the newer browsers have that feature now.

Ad-Ware is a great base program for deleting such stuff.. but I agree with Undomiel, Spybot is a more complete product.

People such as Cirisme shouldn't have aproblem with it, and it does take knowing a bit more about how things work than normal, but it is the better product if you want to keep your system completely free (or as completely as you can considering how new methods to get your information are thought of every day)..


Both good products. I recommend Ad-Ware to anyone who isn't a geek :teeth: , and Spybot to those with geeky tendencies, and all around geeks.

Me, I'm half man, half geek, and use both depending on where I am :cool:



Love and Peace

JCA

[$cirisme]

IE 5 stold most of its new "innovative" features from browsers like Mozilla and Konqueror.

They had cookie blocking, magic forum memory, and image blocking(something IE hasn't stolen yet) long before IE. They also have popup-blocking(at least Moz does, haven't used Kon much lately :smile:) something which Micro$oft has internally vowed never to add.

M$ calls all this innovation, where I come from it's called theft.

:ahem:

[JCA]

Just so we're clear, I wasn't spouting the virtues of IE.. or MS for that matter.. I was just stating for those they may not have known, that it has the feature too.. I really couldn't care less where it got it from, I still have to support it :teeth:

Anyway, we all know MS is Evil, and Bill Gates is really Satans cohort (snicker)

In Love and Peace

JCA

[$cirisme]

I know... but I was in an anti-M$ mood, so I needed to rant a little. :teeth:

/ot Your signature is my favorite verse :thumb: