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Saturday, 4 July, 9:03 AM
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Free Virus and Spyware Software and information
Not everyone who has access to the internet is using it as it was intended. There are many who are determined to use the connections that are available between them and your computer for less than honest activities. I'm not just talking about hackers, those who attack other peoples computer. In general you are extremely unlikely to ever come across someone attacking your computer, normally because although it sounds scary, accessing your computer is just too easy to the average hacker and has no challenge attached to it. Hackers would rather attack companies, government property and large corporation's websites.
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Other dodgy activities include mining software, spyware and virus writing. Mining software and spyware are very much linked. They are both put onto your computer by unreputable individuals for the purpose of gathering information about you. A lot of marketing companies use them to gather information about your surfing habits and will then direct popup adverts at you containing carefully selected content. This kind of software also often slows down your connection to the internet as it is constantly sending information about you back to its creator.
Virus's are a much more serious problem. Viruses will usually arrive as an email attachment, often from people you trust. The reason you will receive them from people you trust is not because your contact has sent it themselves but because the virus has been sent to them, they have opened the attachment and it has automatically sent itself to all the contacts in that persons address book. If you open the attachment it will do the same to you, within a matter of seconds it will have gone to all the email addresses you store on your computer. Scary? Damn right.
Solutions to the problems that are listed above:
Spyware is an easy one to handle. There are a few good pieces of software that are available for free and are regularly updated with all the new spyware that needs to be deleted from your computer.
Ad-aware is an easy to use program, you just click begin scan and when it is done you just tell it to delete the files it finds and then you close the program. Clever, quick and free. Download Ad-aware here
Spybot S+D (search and destroy) is much the same as ad-aware, it will hunt your computer for a list of spyware files and will delete them on your command. Updates are given every few weeks so it is worth checking back at the website for the update. If there is one available then you download it to the desktop of your computer (easy to find) and then double click on it. It does all the hard work automatically, updates all the appropriate files and then you can delete the download. Download Spybot S+D here
You might think that your computer won't have any spyware on it. Think again. Many people who run the most up to date firewalls or the most expensive virus detection software still find dozens of spyware files on their computers. Why? Well the files themselves are usually not dangerous so the firewalls let them into your computer and the virus software doesn't think that they need deleting.
Which of the above should you choose? Don't choose between them, use both of them. One is likely to find files that the other one doesn't yet search for. Neither take long to scan your computer so why not use both?
When I first used these bits of software I found no less than 64 files that had been put on my computer, I would be very surprised if your computer contains less than 10.
Hackers
As I said, you aren't likely to have one even attempt to get onto your computer but if you make a habit of annoying dodgy people off in chatrooms, or you go around plastering your email address all over dodgy websites then you may just get a visit from one. They find you using your IP address, a personal address just for your computer to use. There are literally hundreds of free pieces of software that you can download to stop hackers finding you, or once that have found you, gaining access to your computer.
Zone Alarm
This is a free piece of software, there is an upgrade that costs but you don't need to have that, I run the Pro version, but I choose to run it to stop pieces of software reporting back to their company bases (yes they do, and if your software isn't 100% cosha, then they will know about that too) rather than to stop hackers. Zone alarm can make your computer completely invisible to the internet, you can still browse as usual but if anyone is looking for your computer and sends a request for your computer to 'say hello' then zone alarm will completely ignore the request (know as pinging).
All firewalls work in much the same way, clever but not really needed that much by individual users. You can always check how safe your computer is from attack by clicking here to be directed to the correct page so that clicking on the silver 'All Service Ports' button will run a firewall scan (prepare to be made paranoid).
Virus scanning
There are hundreds of programs that you can use to scan your computer for viruses.
Norton is the most famous (Norton is the large company name for Symantec, who handle all the virus control programs)
MacAfee you may well have heard off too (Hotmail use it to scan all emails entering all inboxes)
You can also check your computer for virus's on the internet by clicking going to the virus scan here then clicking GO, and then choosing both options, one at a time. I suggest you start with the virus scan.(Norton/Symantec scanner)
You may be taking your computer for granted at the moment. They are (without sounding a bit, well, sad) like a living thing. One nasty virus and you could be looking at needing a new computer. You need only spend £40 or so on a piece of virus scanning software that will be auto updated for years into the future, and if you're a sceptic then run the virus and security scans I have listed above on the internet first to check if you need to go and spend the money on a piece of software. All the other software you need, and internet based scans you can do are free so I suggest you take advantage of items listed above. You might end up finding something really nasty is hiding on your computer.
So to repeat the links given above:
Ad-Aware Download here
Download Spybot S+D here
Port scanner (is your computer safe on the internet?)
Virus Scanner (do you already have a virus?)
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