| By :
George Hutton
With the massive growth of the Internet in recent years, it's no wonder that more and more people are taking advantage of this awesome opportunity. The more your surf on line, the more you can't help but notice the amazing amount of cool stuff you can find in the form of entertainment, useful information, and even employment opportunities. However, everything is not as happy as it seems. There is a downside to all this Internet goodness. What I'm talking about here is spyware and adware. What precisely is adware and spyware? First of all, these two categories of programs are different from something commonly referred to as "malware," which is short for malicious software. Malicious software is designed to do only one thing: Delete as much information on your computer as it can. And often times it does this, and then makes copies of itself and sends itself to all your email contacts. Spyware and adware, on the other hand, aren't so terrible. Sure they can be extremely frustrating, and sometimes slow your computer down to a halt, but in and of themselves they don't do much damage. They only snoop around to find information. Often times personal information that you aren't too anxious to share with the Internet at large. Many times spyware serves a useful purpose. Bosses, supervisors, parents, they all want to make sure that the people they are in charge of are using their computers for the right reasons. No parent wants their child surfing to adult web sites, and no boss wants is or her employees goofing off while they should be working. These are some common uses of purposely installed spyware by people that actually have a vested interest in the user of the target computer. But what about the other kind? The other kind is installed without your knowledge, an without your permission. Often times they come along with something that you may have thought was "free," like a handy desktop icon, or some file sharing software. But more often than not, these "free" software programs often come with spyware and adware pre installed. How do you get rid of it once you have it? The best way is to obtain and run an anti spyware software program. These are either free, or paid. The free ones are great, but sometimes they aren't up to date enough to take care of the latest spyware programs out there. When this happens, sometimes the best thing to do is pay for a program. This way, you'll not only always be up to date, but you'll also have continued protection against future invasions. The Internet provides wonderful sources for information and entertainment. You shouldn't spend your valuable time worrying about spyware on your computer.
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