Ad-Aware 2008 (anti-spyware)
Spyware is software that monitors your actions clandestinely, and transmits usage information to a third source. Spyware can be downloaded to your computer while visiting particular websites without your knowing or pemitting it. The information collected could be Internet usage (used by advertisers) or worse, data like passwords and credit card information (identity theft). These programs can modify your browser's homepage, slow your system down, and even prevent you from browsing at all. At this point, school computers have not been hit by spyware, due probably to our firewall. If you take a school laptop home for Internet use, or want to protect your home computer, here is a FREE product designed to remove existing spyware.
Download and Installation
- Go to www.spychecker.com or www.download.com and download Ad-Aware 2008 to your Desktop
- Close your browser and double-click the Ad-Aware icon on your Desktop. Accept all defaults.
Use
- Run Ad-Aware at least once every two weeks. Check for updates each time. In the DEFINITIONS STATUS box, click UPDATE.
- Accept all new spyware updates. Click YES.
- If new program updates are available you'll get a window similar to the following. Click YES.
- You do not need to check languages you can't read (unlike my screen shot). Click DOWNLOAD.
- Back on the main screen, click SCAN in left column. On the next screen, choose FULL SCAN and click SCAN.
- When the scan has completed, make sure you check both tabs (CRITICAL OBJECTS and PRIVACY OBJECTS), check those items, and click REMOVE.
- You should end up with 0 objects in both categories. Click FINISH after you checked both tabs.
- Exit the program.
-Scott Smith
September 2005
updated February 2008
updated June 2008
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