August 7, 2004

Forbes: Rooting Out Spyware

I was attacked by Spyware a few weeks ago and had to reinstall the operating system to get rid of it. There are a few programs available that do a decent job of getting rid of spyware if you are infected - but in my case nothing worked. So I had to do the re-install. The best protection, is to not get infected in the first place.

Forbes writes I knew there was a reason I had stopped using Microsoft's Internet Explorer in favor of Mozilla's Firefox browser, but I'd forgotten what that reason was. Then I launched it in order to use an online database that works only with Explorer.

In seconds, the distasteful memories came flooding back. An obnoxious browser window popped up in front of the Explorer home page, displaying some useless drivel: "Popular B2B listings." (Being a Firefox user, pop-up windows of any kind are a rare occurrence.) At the bottom of the window was some fine print that said, "This is a 404search offer," and included a link to learn more about what a 404search is.

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