In my my city Port Saint Lucie and all over the great state of
Florida, say the words Spyware, Adware, or malware and Business owners, along
with any technically average Windows PC user will shudder in horror. That's
because these programs not only are incredibly stubborn when you're trying to
remove them, but they often change administrator or security settings on your
computer, Workstation, or Server, such as what sites you allow trust or the
settings in your HOST files. Spyware or adware, a malicious program that can
add, change or remove values in the Windows registry allowing the program to
fully install on the opening of Internet Explorer or Firefox, or on the next
reboot of your computer repair, even after deleted if not removed completely.
Today's spyware is more common than a virus for the average
Windows user surfing the internet. Spyware has hundreds of successful ways to
disable or infect your computer via all the common exploits or software bugs,
like errors within the Windows operating system allowing spyware the use of
your CPU cycles, to spam others, and to solicit your desktop to show you pop
ups for everything from pornography to other spyware programs that will claim
to be able to remove the currently installed spyware or clean a virus from your
computer, when in fact it can make it worse by installing more spyware. Spyware
can copy secure data from your desktop computer or PC and send it off to
another country, or even some where else in our own country where a malicious
hacker waits to sell or use your stolen data for anything from ID theft, to
pirating your Audio and or Video collection and posting it online. It is very
important to remove spy ware as soon as its detected as you can see by all the
harm it can cause besides just slowing down your computer and making its use a
miserable experience.
The best path to take is to try stopping the spyware before it is
able to fully take hold or control of your computer, server or workstation if
you already have some installed. If you have a clean spyware computer follow
the tips below to keep it that way. It is just as important to verify complete
removal once you feel the spyware has been uninstalled to make sure, it cannot
reinstall on the next reboot and that your data is once again secure from theft
of prying eyes. Simply put Spyware is part of a big online business of data
theft and forced marketing along with the fake software to remove the spyware
for another $50 dollars then they can go for your credit card info next. If you
are seeing a major slowdown in the functions of your windows desktop computer
you need to have the computer cleaned and probably a little spyware removal
depending on your internet surfing habits and what you like to Google for.
Worst case you have to reinstall your Windows operating system and all programs
then copy your data over from a back up if you have one.
If you are not backing up please allow me to introduce you to a
great little program called Carbonite. Carbonite provides a great solution to
the problem of backing up your home or office compueter. Carbonite includes
unlimited size online or off site storage for for your files at a very
reasonable price of $59.99 or so per year. Not only do I recommend the program
I use it my self for years I was a beta tester and have it installed on three
of my home servers protecting my data with off site storage day and night. I
have personally witnessed this program save 4 companies from complete data loss
due to the person in charge at that office not testing there backup tapes, a
raid went bad in another and they never complained about the error on reboot of
the server until it was to late, and one company who claimed they backed up to
a USB hard drive and said don't worry about us, well they forgot for a year and
had no back at all when there server got hit by lightening. Each of the
companies listed were saved by the great little program for off site backups
called Carbonite. After the problem was repaired in all cases the software they
lost was immediately downloaded to the new location and re shared to the office
allowing them to get back to work.
Follow my free tips below to attempt to remove installed spyware
from your PC server or workstation.
(Please remember this is done at your own risk I take no responsibility
for the outcome of your work.)
Step 1.) To remove spyware, first you should download the programs
listed below then disconnect your computer from the Internet. After you
complete the downloads unplug your computer from the modem or router to ensure
that you are offline. You'll need the right programs to remove spyware from
your computer. If you are unable to surf the internet with your browser
correctly you will need to download the free software for removal from another
computer that is connected to the internet, like a friend or family member PC.
Once you have downloaded the files from Google, Yahoo or Bing You'll need to
burn the spyware removal programs to a cd or copy them to a USB memory stick
and then install them on your PC and use them from there. There are hundreds of
programs to remove or repair a PC or computer infected with spyware.
The programs I would like you to download are:
a.) Cleanup.exe to remove temp files
b.) Spybot Search And Destroy to search through its definitions after you update it like anti virus software and remove the spyware from both the folders and registry and also cleanup the Host files
c.) Sysinternals process explorer to view the running process or services to see what is hogging your resources