TCS - Protect Your Online Privacy – Remove Spyware

Protect Your Online Privacy – Remove Spyware

by Ira Wilsker
Golden Triangle PC Club
From the March 2003 issue of the I/O Port Newsletter

Do you have “Comet Cursor” on your computer because it puts cute cursors on your computer? Do you have “Gator” to help you remember your passwords and other personal information needed online? Do you have “Alexa” to help you search for information on the web? Have you ever noticed that your computer sometimes appears to dial itself to connect to some unknown, often foreign, web server? Is your browser set to the default “accept all cookies” (small text files placed on your computer by many websites), even though some cookies can be used to disclose your browsing habits to anonymous third parties? Have you ever had your browser seem to load a web page that you did not request, as if it had been hijacked? Many internet surfers may not be aware that there are a variety of popular programs and utilities that look good on their face, but may also be a source of trouble as they track your internet usage, and report your internet activities to a variety of unknown third parties. Some software, referred to as “adware” inserts popup ads on the screen while surfing the web. What even may be worse is a stepchild of spyware referred to in the industry as “scumware”, which can actually reroute online purchases to unknown third parties, in exchange for a commission. A remote dialer can connect to a foreign web server by dialing an expensive international long distance phone number, and then opening up a series of browser windows, often pornographic; revenues are generated to the dialer software creator by sharing the toll charges as well as the advertising revenues of the pages viewed involuntarily.

Personally, I do not like anyone tracking what I do on the net; in my opinion, it is none of their business. I also do not like anyone to reroute me to another page I did not request, and intercept some of my online purchases and send my personal information and credit card number to an unknown third party. For this reason, I frequently run any one of several utilities designed to detect and neutralize spyware, tracking cookies, and scumware on my computer.

My personal favorite is Ad-Aware, a free utility written from Sweden, available for download from www.lavasoftusa.com. The new version 6, released in February, was the first significant update in several months, and resolves most of the issues in previous versions. The file, once downloaded, is opened and the program installs itself on any Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, or XP system, with a red slashed circle icon on the desktop. Clicking on the icon starts the program. I recommend that the user click on the “Check for updates now” link each time before clicking on the “Scan Now” button; this way the user is sure to have the latest reference files. The default settings are adequate for most users, but experts may find the available customization and flexibility an advantage. I recently ran the new version 6, with the latest reference file update, on two Windows 2000 computers that had never before been scanned. On one computer, it found almost 300 references to spyware running and in the memory, written to the registry, or listed in the cookies files. The other computer had about 260 spyware entries. Clicking on the “Author” button at the top of the list created after the scan was completed, sorted the detected spyware and scumware by title. Dozens of entries were listed for Comet Cursor, Gator, Alexa, browser hijackers, tracking cookies, and other undesirable software. Ad-Aware offers the option to deselect items from the list before deleting them. Fortunately for those of us known to make mistakes, Ad-Aware creates a full backup of anything being deleted in a quarantine folder, just in case something is deleted in error. While there have been some negative reviews of Ad-Aware 6, the computer magazine PC World awarded Ad-Aware (version 5) its coveted “PC World's 20th World Class Awards” as the “Best Software Product of the Year (2002)” in the freeware category.

Another personal choice, actually a cousin of Ad-Aware using the same data engine as Ad-Aware, is the German “SpyBot Search and Destroy”, available for free download (in English) from spybot.safer-networking.de. Spybot has similar functions as Ad-Aware, but offers the user more control over the detection and deletion of spyware. The SpyBot website also has an excellent listing of the spyware it can detect and kill, as well as other interesting privacy news.

For those wanting an even more comprehensive and sophisticated commercial ($39.95) spyware killer, PestPatrol, available for download and purchase from www.pestpatrol.com is possibly the best, winning the Network World Magazine 2002 Category-Breaker Award, and PC Magazine awarded it “5 Stars”, its highest rating, naming PestPatrol as the most mature product reviewed and complementing it for its easy interface and ability to detect and remove questionable software. A free trial copy of the software can be downloaded from the website. The free trial version can detect any dangerous software, but will not automatically remove it. PestPatrol has been reviewed in detail previously in this column.

One warning about using any product used to detect and kill spyware; some freeware, shareware, and commercial software requires that the included spyware or adware appear to the user in order for the software to function properly. If the attached spyware or adware is deleted, then the program may not function properly or at all.



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Tulsa Computer Society 3/02/2003
Don Singleton, President