Hunting Down Spyware

Another growing nuisance is the proliferation of spyware programs. These are programs that install themselves on your computer and then surreptitiously send information about the way you use your PC to some interested third party. Spyware typically gets installed in the background when you're installing another program. One of the biggest sources of spyware are KaZaA and other peer-to-peer music-trading networks; when you install the file-trading software, the spyware is also installed.

Having spyware on your system is nasty, almost as bad as being infected with a computer virus. Some spyware programs will even hijack your computer and launch pop-up windows and advertisements when you visit certain web pages. If there's spyware on your computer, you definitely want to get rid of it.

Unfortunately, most antivirus programs won't catch spyware because spyware isn't a virus. To track down and uninstall these programs, then, you need to run an anti-spyware utility, such as Microsoft AntiSpyware (shown in Figure 29.3).

Figure 29.3. Finding hidden spyware programs with Microsoft AntiSpyware.

Here are some of the best of these spyware fighters:

• Ad-Aware (www.lavasoftusa.com)

• McAfee AntiSpyware (www.mcafee.com)

• Microsoft AntiSpyware (www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/)

• Spy Sweeper (www.webroot.com)

• Spybot Search & Destroy (www.safer-networking.org)