Ad wary

[trochee]

A friend in the Linguistics department dropped a warning e-note to the department grads email list:

I always thought my Norton Internet Security software protected my system thoroughly. My system kept getting worse and worse, so I finally did some research and discovered Norton doesn't care much about adware and spyware. (Yes, it detects some, but not all and their Webpage isn't very forthcoming.)

Anyway, I found two freeware programs both of which found adware and spyware on my system only about 4 days after I completely erased my hard disk.

The pages and download pages are:

Ad-Aware

Spybot - Search and Destroy

HTH

And I responded, to the department:

I would second [his] recommendation for Ad-Aware and Spybot (the two links he posted) on Windows.

Why doesn't Norton take care of this? I think it's a legal issue: spyware and adware are usually technically something you "agreed" to in one of those ten-pages-of-incomprehensible-legalese "end user license agreement" things. Thus Norton, with no interest in getting involved in lawsuits, especially as the defendant, stays away from removing them, because (e.g.) the Kazaa license gives them the right to install whatever other software they choose on your system, and if Norton then were to immediately zap their extra installs, Norton would be targetting Kazaa's business model.

Ad-ware and spy-ware (collectively called "mal-ware" sometimes) is yet another reason to beware of the "speed up your internet" or "get new IM icons -- free!" popup ads. These sorts of things (and Kazaa) frequently install (e.g.) Gator spyware and report back to the mothership on what you're doing every day. If you're running Windows -- and especially if you use IE as your browser -- don't forget

1. to run your Windows Updates regularly, and
2. to install and run an anti-virus program regularly and
3. to install and run an anti-adware program as well.

Multiple lines of defense will extend the lifespan of your computer and -- even more crucially -- your data.

Mal-ware is scary for privacy reasons and for computer performance reasons. It's also a good reason to consider using Mozilla instead of Internet Explorer, since most of these hijacker ad-ware and spy-ware programs are designed to really do nasty things with Explorer, and Mozilla -- being an open-source project -- is frequently updated to avoid these problems. And, because everyone expects this of me by now:

Spyware targets Internet Explorer because most people use it, and because beginner users don't remember to do their security patching. Similarly, it targets Windows because of the dominant monoculture in the PC world. Using a minority operating system is also another way to avoid these problems. (Mac X, BSD and Linux are three very stable and very powerful operating systems that are virtually free of viruses and ad-ware). Also, by encouraging diversity, we improve stability. A virus that crashes only Windows systems can't take down the whole network if the network has at least a few non-Windows systems.

That's the view from this Debian machine,

me

Comments

America-hating Liberal Hogwash!

[lx.livejournal.com]

Oh wait. Um. Wrong irrational, knee-jerk, rhetorical platitude.

Just give me a minute. It'll come to me!

Re: America-hating Liberal Hogwash!

[trochee.livejournal.com]

For a minute I thought you were responding to this piece of America-hating liberal hogwash. Then I realized which of my posts you were responding to! Heh.

[solri.livejournal.com]

Norton sucks donkey's balls. It is the only Windows program I've used that not only made Windows unusable, but also screwed up my Linux installation.

[moretea.livejournal.com]

windows?

what's that?