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Fighting Ad Ware and Spy Ware

By: Brien M. Posey 

This week, while surfing the Q&A Forum, I saw a post from someone who was having a problem with excessive numbers of pop-ups being displayed in Internet Explorer. This is a problem that seems to be growing every day, and I would like to take this opportunity to explain what you can do about it.

The real key to fixing the problem is to understand where the pop-ups are coming from. Pop-ups can be generated by Web sites that you visit, or they can be generated by ad ware that exists on your system. Even the MSN Messenger service can generate pop-ups, although this is usually not excessive.

I recommend beginning the repair process by searching your system for both ad ware and spy ware. Ad ware and spy ware are programs that get installed on your system, usually without your knowledge. There are a million different varieties of these. The biggest difference between ad ware and spy ware is that spy ware typically steals information off of your system and sends it to someone, whether it be to a hacker or to an advertising firm. In the case of information being sent to an advertising firm, your habits are studied and then targeted ads are sent to you via E-mail, pop-ups, etc. For example, if you visit a lot of Web sites related to water sports, it won’t be long before you’ll start receiving water sports related ads.

Ad ware on the other hand, is an imbedded component by which advertisers can push ads to your system, usually in the form of pop ups. One of the most notorious forms of ad ware is a product called Gator. (www.gator.com). While this program poses as a device to prevent you from having to fill in Web forms, it’s actually one of the more aggressive pieces of ad ware that I have seen.

Both ad ware and spy ware can be a menace to you and to your system. Not only do these types of software compromise your privacy and subject you to constant advertisements, they degrade your system’s performance by stealing CPU time, memory, disk space, disk time, and Internet bandwidth.

So the big question is, how do you get rid of ad ware and spy ware?  There are lots of utilities for doing this. One of the best ad ware removal tools is a utility called Ad Ware from a company called Lavasoft (www.lavasoft.nu). This program is similar to an anti virus program, but scans only for ad ware.

A good spy ware removal tool is SpywareRemover, from Bullet Proof Software (www.BulletProofSoft.com) Like AdWare, SpywareRemover is an anti virus style program, but concentrates on removing spy ware.

Still another useful tool is ViRobot from Hauri (www.hauriusa.net). Technically ViRobot is an anti virus program, rather than a program for removing ad ware or spy ware. However, ViRobot is the best Anti Virus program that I have found yet. Furthermore, it also includes limited support for spy ware detection. I fully expect ViRobot to evolve into a full blown anti virus / spy ware / ad ware solution in the future. Hauri is a company to keep an eye on.

Now that I have shown you how to eliminate spy ware and ad ware, let’s talk about those annoying Web based pop-ups. If a pop-up is part of a Web site’s code, then you can use a pop-up blocker to suppress it. My personal favorite pop-up blocker is a product called Guard-IE, from Failsafe Technologies (www.guardwall.com). GuardIE not only blocks Internet pop-ups, but also contains a number of other mechanisms designed to protect your privacy. The biggest thing to remember when using an Internet pop-up blocker is that doing so may interfere with the usage of legitimate Web sites. There are plenty of legitimate Web sites that open things in a separate window. For example, if you click on a thumb nail, an enlarged image might be displayed in a separate window. Another example is that sometimes manufacturer Web sites contain links to product reviews. In such cases, the reviews are often opened in a separate window. If you use GuardIE, you should try to configure it in a way that won’t interfere with the usage of such Web sites.

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