Removing spyware; tangent on other privacy issues

[Admin]

This article may be too geeky for some, but it is a comprehensive guide to dealing with spyware:

www.michaelhorowitz.com/removespyware.html

My strategy:

I run checks with both Ad-Aware and Spybot every day or so and have Spyware Blaster installed to prevent spyware from installing. Neither Ad-Aware or Spybot alone is enough by itself; both catch what the other one misses. Spybot now has a cool feature called immunize that allows you to prevent lots of known spyware from installing in the first place. You may find this a nuisance as it will notify you each time you enter a site that uses DoubleClick and Avenue A [both programs that determine what ads you will see based on your surfing habits]. Personally I'm happy with it; I'd rather click on dozens of acknowledgements that tell me a program is being deterred than expose myself to thousands of known instances of spyware.

Ad-Aware Personal edition: www.lavasoftusa.com/

Spybot: www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html

Here is a handy Spybot tutorial: www.safer-networking.org/en/tutorial/index.html

Spyware Blaster: www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html

All 3 programs are free for personal use. They all accept donations, though, and I strongly encourage everyone to give a little when they can so that the programmers at these companies can continue to create Good Stuff.

And while I'm talking about privacy . . . check out this site, Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering: www.nocards.org/

The site authors explain how supermarket loyalty cards not only invade your privacy but are quickly leading to 2- or 3-tiered pricing systems, meaning that those who spend the most money (I keep reading the figure that the top-spending 30% of shoppers account for 75% of a store's income) will be given the lowest prices. They address the idea of using fake id details and conclude that it doesn't solve the problem and in fact makes it worse (in part by increasing the expense of the program, which of course is passed on to the consumer). They also look at RFID tags, which have revolutionized checkouts at my public library but may not be what I want to see in my supermarket or department store (see the article about how Gilette tested a program that snaps a picture of each person who removes a package of razors from the store shelf). Companies hope that consumers will be "apathetic" enough to be resigned to what seems like an inevitable loss of privacy.

[lehmanent]

I bought and installed spybouncer from the major geeks site. I must warn you all about something I learned too late.

When you install a program like this, be sure when all the programs are found with spyware are ones you wish to delete.

I deleted all not realizing that my Gator (I use to remember my passwords) was deleted. I was able to go back and restore it because this program has a backup of all files it has removed where you would have to click on everything to remove it from there.

THANK GOODNESS!

So, I was able to find everything from Gator (Gain software) and restore it, however, I lost all my personal passwords and have been working to restore them.

Also, my kids play Diablo online with each other and their friends, this is also a type of spyware and it deleted the .exe file for that game. We were able to restore that without losing their characters or saved worlds. Thank goodness also, that has been my livesaver this summer keeping them busy.

Anyway, just a heads up, be aware of what is about to be removed from your computer, you may be willing to accept it, as I was the Gator popups.

Kelly Lehman

[Admin]

Thanks, Kelly, for that valuable info. I appreciate your sharing so others can learn from your experience.

Spybot Search and Destroy "quarantines" all the potential spyware before removing it, which allows one to go back and restore a program if it turns out it was something one needed. Ad-Aware doesn't do this, but I've also found that it doesn't remove nearly as much spyware, either. It does remove some things that Spybot doesn't identify, though, so I find it necessary to run both.

There is a discussion on the Spybot site that describes how Ad-Aware can erroneously identify some aspects of the Spybot program as spyware when it finds quarantined programs, so make sure to read this before using Ad-Aware when you also have Spybot. Whew -- that is confusing! Don't worry - Spybot is not spyware itself. It is recommended by many, many very credible computer experts, not just me.

I also recommend making a system restore point before doing anything that alters your computer. You'll find a discussion of this useful feature above under Working With Windows. I can't emphasize enough how this simple step will save you from most of the disasters that you can inadvertently trigger! If you do nothing else, please make sure that your system is set to automatically create restore points.

But system restore won't save you from everything. When you restore your system to a previous point it doesn't change emails you may have written or documents you have updated or saved in the interim, so it might not have saved all of Kelly's data. It would have allowed her to take her computer back to the settings in effect when the programs were both running, so she would not have had to reinstall the programs.

My kids are online gamers too. I can only imagine the hue and cry that would erupt if I inadvertently erased their characters or gold or saved items. That's why they have their own computer to mess with and mess up; my work computer is only used by me. [That's also more consistent with HIPAA privacy requirements, although one could satisfy the requirements by setting up a separate user profile for MT or partitioning the hard drive and placing all MT work stuff in one password-protected area.]

[lehmanent]

Yes, that would have been smart to restore. I had done a restore point, maybe I will go back and do that. D'oh.

And yes, I have separate users set up on my computer with mine passworded to keep little critters out.

Kelly

[Admin]

lehmanent said:

And yes, I have separate users set up on my computer with mine passworded to keep little critters out.

Kelly

I thought you probably did, Kelly.