About Computer Spyware Programs

Function of Spyware

Spyware roaming around your computer is a lot like a stranger wandering around your house, peeking through your cabinets and drawers and opening all your personal mail. It travels in and out of your computer reporting its findings to whomever programmed it. Most of the information gathered by spyware is used for marketing purposes. The program will collect all of your interests, mostly by way of web page clicks. It gathers phone numbers and email addresses if you've got them stored on your computer. All this information is reported back to the initiator and sorted into a database so a marketing firm (or whatever interested party) can target you for products or services. Those are the mild uses. Other uses are much more dangerous to you. Some spyware searches your computer for bank account numbers, Social Security numbers and passwords. These are used for identity theft, which is a very messy situation to get caught up in.

Spyware can cause hardship like identity theft and even personal security risk. Most spyware, however, causes more inconvenience than anything else. While the spyware scans your computer, it uses up a lot of your computer's resources. Your computer's CPU performance will become strained, memory will be bogged and bandwidth will reach its max. That is with one spyware program. More than one implanted into your computer can cause total instability and loss of control.

You've probably already experienced some of the symptoms of an annoying spyware program. Perhaps you can't log onto a certain website. Or maybe you've noticed that some of your computer software takes forever to open. When you open your browser, you get redirected to a strange site. When you try to shut down your computer, you get an error because of something that is running in the background. You see an unfamiliar application in your task manager window. Or worse, you see an unfamiliar application on your hard drive and cannot delete it. These are all signs that may indicate spyware. Note that these are also signs of a possible virus or even a system malfunction. But your "something's wrong meter" should definitely go off.

Not all spyware crawls into your computer without your consent. You would be amazed at how many software products are sold with spyware that is ready to be installed by you. You know those boring agreements you're supposed to read before you install a product? Some software distributors take advantage of the fact that you won't read them. Like everyone else, you are too impatient to get your product installed and automatically click "Yes, I agree" without knowing what you just agreed to. While most agreements are the same commonsense issues like not infringing upon the software developer's rights, a few actually insert agreements about spyware. Somewhere in the agreement, it will inform you that this software also installs a program that will collect your personal information. Fewer software companies do this these days because of complaints. A more common way of contracting spyware is through certain websites. These sites toss in their spyware as soon as you open their pages. Sometimes they use pop-ups. Most often, however, spyware comes from Internet downloads.

Some spyware is as simple to remove as deleting the file from your C drive. Spyware removal software is available, as is Windows Defender, which Microsoft provides and updates for free (see Resources). There are spyware programs that are a little more stubborn. If you've got a particularly obnoxious bit of spyware, it may have come with a life insurance policy to resist all attempts to kill it. If you kill it in task manager, another instance immediately pops up. If you try to remove it from your hard drive, you might get a message saying you don't have permission. Even removing it from the registry can prove tricky, because some spyware actually installs supporting software that will replace the removed entries. If you do come across spyware that will not seem to budge, the best cure is a system restore (under Windows system tools). Restore your computer's registry to a point just before your problems started. Note that system restore does not delete files, but it does uninstall any recently installed programs and removes any new registry entries. So if you installed any software (on purpose) between the restore point and the restore time, you will have to reinstall that software.