Spyware on my machine

I came upon an ad. I don’t know where I “picked it up”. But I thought it was cute enough I wanted to show it to you. It presumed to know something about my computer, that it couldn’t possibly know:

spyblocs_terry

My apologies if the image gets shrinked. Just click on the image to view it at full size.

The point is that most of these ads will load a spyware scanner that gives fraudulent results. The scan may be free, but the cure isn’t. There ARE so called spyware scanners that are fronts for actual spyware as well.

NEVER run spyware scanners that you know nothing about. ONLY run spyware scanners that are considered the real deal. Examples are “Spybot Search And Destroy” and “Adaware”.

Check Spywareblog for more about spyware.

4 Responses to “Spyware on my machine”

  1. Search Engines Web Says:

    A couple of helpful tactics have been to do the following for checking Browser Helpers - or Add-ons - or recenty added “Programs”…

    Internet Options… — Temporary Files — Settings — View Objects

    C:\WINDOWS\Downloaded Program Files

    AND

    C:\Program Files

    Arrange Icons by — Modified

    You’d be suprise what can sneak up on a non-firewalled some sloppy “Security Settings” / “Advanced Settings) Computers

  2. ralphy Says:

    Google itself received that kind of e-mail:

    Be wary of SEO firms that send you email out of the blue.
    Amazingly, we get these spam emails too:

    “Dear google.com,
    I visited your website and noticed that you are not listed in most of the major search engines and directories…”
    Reserve the same skepticism for unsolicited email about search engines as you do for “burn fat at night” diet pills or requests to help transfer funds from deposed dictators.

    (See: http://www.google.com/webmasters/seo.html for more details.)

    Moderator: URL removed. Content too racy.

  3. John A. Bilicki III Says:

    Tisk tisk…not using Firefox or at least Opera? If you’re on a MAC you’ve got a third rendering engine as an option.

  4. Administrator Says:

    I’m not using IE, if that’s what you’re implying. Don’t know how you got that idea. Maybe because I see those kinds of popups at all? It’s actually quite common, even outside IE.

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