What is Spyware

Spyware is Any Software which employs a user's Internet connection in the background without their knowledge or explicit permission.

Any Software communicating across the Internet without the users knowledge or consent is guilty of information theft.
 

What are Parasites

"Parasite" is a shorthand term for "unsolicited commercial software" - that is, a program that gets installed on your computer, which you never asked for, and which does something, you probably don't want it to, for someone else's profit.

What Spyware does
- Plagues you with unwanted advertising ("Adware")
- Watches everything you do on-line and sends information back to marketing companies
- Adds advertising links to web pages, for which the author does not get paid, and redirect the payments from affiliate-fee schemes to the makers of the software (such software is sometimes called "scumware");
- Sets browser home page and search settings to point to the makers" sites (generally loaded with advertising), and prevent you changing it back ("homepage hijackers");
- Makes your modem (analogue or ISDN) call premium-rate phone numbers ("diallers");
- Leaves security holes allowing the makers of the software - or, in particularly bad cases, anyone at all - to download and run software on your machine ("Trojans");
- Degrades system performance and cause errors thanks to being badly written;
- Provides no uninstall feature, and put its code in unexpected and hidden places to make it difficult to remove.

Where do they come from
There are three major ways unsolicited commercial software can make its way on to your machine:
- Some freeware programs are "bundled" with parasites, which are installed at the same time.
- Many parasites load using Internet Explorer's ActiveX installation option. When a web page includes a link to an ActiveX program, a window will appear asking the user wishes to execute it. If "Yes" is clicked (or if IE security settings are set lower than normal so that it never even asks*), the software is allowed to run and can do anything at all it likes on our computer, including installing parasites.
- Some of the really sleazy parasites, particularly homepage-hijackers and diallers, execute by exploiting security holes in Internet Explorer, ways of getting code to run that are not supposed to be possible, but are due to mistakes in the browser code.

How to remove Spyware

The easiest way to remove Spyware for your computer is to use one of the free Spyware removal programs to remove it for you.

However not all Spyware Removal Tools can be trusted. Please visit our Corrupt Spyware Tools page where there is a list of programs that we  recommend you do not use.

We recommend Spyware Terminator for detection and removal of Spyware.

Ad-Aware is one of the leading Spyware removal applications.

It is free for personal use and automatically  keeps itself up to date.

Sometimes Spyware may need to be manually removed.

Instructions for manually removing Spyware can be found in the Spyware Encyclopaedia.

Simply search for the name of the unwanted application and follow the instructions on how to remove it.

For Free Virus and Spyware Tools CLICK HERE

Free Spyware Protection  Spyware Terminator prevents spyware from infecting your computer.

Free Real-Time Protection
Guards your system and ensures spyware is intercepted before it installs.

Free Antivirus Protection
Extended detection of malware during scans and within the Real-Time Shield. Effectively remove spyware, adware, trojans, keyloggers, home page hijackers, and malware threats

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CORRUPT/DANGEROUS

SPYWARE TOOLS

Not all anti-Spyware programs are created equal.

Our Corrupt Anti-Spyware list show products which we DO NOT RECOMMEND you use.

The list details products that use various questionable techniques, are driven by SPAM and/or deceptive advertising, give false positives, use scare tactics or associate with known Spyware developers.

SHOW DANGER LIST

Spyware Encyclopaedia

Manual Removal Instructions

If you know the name of the parasite, you can look in the  Spyware encyclopaedia, find the parasite and follow  the manual removal instructions.

OPEN THE

SPYWARE ENCYCLOPAEDIA