Noteworthy Non-Technical Articles
Terminating Spyware With Extreme Prejudice
By RACHEL DODES
Published in The New York Times: December 30, 2004
Correction Appended
January 1, 2005
SamRoitman.com, Inc comments:
The author's description of the pain she endured when her middle-aged computer was afflicted with spyware deserves to be read at least once by everyone who owns a computer. Heed her advice and don't let your computer catch a "sexually-transmitted" disease!
We long ago stopped counting the number of computers clients have brought us with this "social disease" : slowdowns, freezes and fake "blue screens of death" caused by spyware and/or viruses downloaded in a moment of frenzied excitement over a "free" piece of software or the latest song -- "free" from P2P programs like Kazaa.
Do not be tempted by these juicy morsels! There is no such thing as a free lunch. It may or may not be worth the cost and/or time it takes to fix it. But it's definitely not worth the risk of unwittingly installing a keylogger program that will track every keystroke you make -- and send each and every one (including your checking account and password info) straight to Boris SonuvaGonif in Novosibirsk.
Please note that you can find software downloads and directions to fix such problems on your own at MajorGeeks.com
And always, always, always: make sure to back up your data before you start!