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*Protecting yourself against spyware*

What is Spyware?

Spyware is a groupname of all kind of small programs that can be

installed unnoticed upon the computer while your surfing on the internet.

These programs can register all kinds of data from the user and sended to the central server.

Data like what websites the user visits, what programs are installed, much often they are used, how many hours you spend on the internet, how much mail you receive.

These data are send back to the creator of the software who can sell these personal data to any people that show “interest” for them.

How can I get Spyware?

Some internet advertising companies install cookies on your computer when one of those advertise banners are loaded into your browser.

These cookies tell the creators what sites that you visit and what your doing there. Cookies are small data files that are used to store information between 2 website visits. All cookies are not that harmful !

Visiting “dark websites” (like erotica websites, crack-sites, warez-sites) from the internet can bring infections upon your computer. These sites are the source of the distribution of malware.

Some freeware programs that the internet offers, can contain spyware. The programs are free because they collect data from the computer user and his/her surf behaviour upon the internet.

How can I protect myself?

You can't stop spyware with any anti virus program or a firewall, for spyware/malware you need a specific program.

A very popular program is Ad-Aware. You can download this program in this location :

http://www.lavasoftusa.com/products/ad_aware_free.php

When you have downloaded this program and installed it, you first have to download new updates from the internet. Don’t worry, Ad-Aware will ask you automatically if

you want to download new updates, these will be automatically downloaded/installed, after that you can start a 'Full Scan' on your computer.

Ad-Aware searches for possible spyware upon your computer and will reveal them on the end of the scan in a list.

You can select the spyware that you want to remove and also receive more information about a certain spyware like location, degree of danger, type of spyware.