Spybot Killing Programs

Below are links to some FREE applications which may help keep your computer free of "spybot" programs. I have found all of these applications to be quite useful individually and together. There is no conflict amongst these applications, providing you use them one at a time. Also, it seems to be a good idea to have multiple applications because one application will catch viruses and hijacks that some of the others do not.

What are Spybots?

Spybots are nasty little programs which, technically, are not classified as actual viruses, but infect your computer all the same. Spybots differ from actual viruses in what they do on your machine. Here are some spybot attributes:

• Hijack/Change your default internet browser home page without your permission.
• Make it impossible to change your browser home page back to its original page.
• Slow processing speed on your machine due to "behind the scenes" reporting on your internet activity.
• Capture/steal personal information recorded on your machine and report back to its authors.
• Turn your computer into an annoying box which does nothing more than popup advertising every time you use it.

How do you protect yourself?

It seems clear the best approach is a proactive one. Get a firewall application installed on your computer ASAP. People with full-time connections like ADSL, DSL, Cable, are especially at risk for this kind of spyware attack.

Make sure your internet browser security settings are set, at least, to a Medium level of security.

Most importantly, keep good anti-spyware applications installed on your machine! Run them regularly, and update them regularly!

Anti-Spyware programs are plentiful and in many cases completely free. Here are just a few which have saved my system recently! To download any of these programs and try them for yourself, just "Right-click" on the name of the file and select "Save As" or on some systems it might be "Save Link As" to copy the file down to your system.

• CWShredder - My rating = five stars *****
• CWShredder2 - My rating = two stars **
• Delcwssk - My rating = three stars ***
• SDSetup - My rating = three stars ***
• Spybot Search and Destroy - My rating = five stars *****
• Spy Ferret - My rating = one stars *