Prevent Spyware - Steps to prevent Spyware from infecting your PC

The Internet today is an awesome and wondrous place to roam. Unfortunatly, it is also full of virtual garbage. Unlike conventional garbage Internet garbage has evolved and is quite capable of movement. Not only does Internet garbage move it also has a tendency to move towards us in order to create more Internet garbage.

In order to not be part of the Internet garbage community and keep our computers as healthy as possible we are forced to consider implementing security measures.
But what kind of computer security measures and how many?

With different types of what we classified as Internet garbage quickly spreading over the entire world companies have set out to identify, categorize and dispose of this garbage.

This led to the advent of a myriad of different programs and tools to help us protect ourselves from garbage and do our part in disposing of it.

A rough estimate of today's 'garbage disposal' programs show that in order to protect ourselves from all the different types of garbage we would have to install around 15 different software packages on our computer.

Not only would this virtually eliminate any traces of good performance from your PC (it would probably be quite slow) the odds of all these programs working together without attempting to 'dispose' of each other is extremely slim.

As a result we are forced to make choices from the tools presented to us online, choices that will affect how secure our computer is against viruses, worms, Trojans, spyware, malware and all those other things we simply don't want.

This kind of choice doesn't come easy. After all if we pick a bullet proof vest and end up being stabbed then our choice was wrong and we end up in a situation we don't want to be in (lucky for us there is rarely blood involved when it comes to online security).

In order for us to make an educated choice we will first take a look at the list of possible threats. Each one of these threats has one or more methods of removal that generally has resulted in there being a tool to remove that specific threat.

In general threats can be categorized as below:

1. Viruses, Trojans, Worms and similar
2. Spyware, Malware, Adware
3. Email threats
4. Direct threats (hacking, DOS attacks)
5. Start page hijacking (browser hijacking)
6. Pop-ups (not actually a threat, but such a pain to behold!)


What all these threats exactly are is beyond the scope of this article. Some will sound familiar and those that don't can easily be looked up by doing a corresponding search on a popular Internet search engine.

In order to fight these threats we have the choice of several pieces of software:

1. Virus scanner
2. Firewall
3. Pop-up blockers
4. Spyware scanner
5. Browser defenders
6. Email scanners

As can be seen we have already made an attempt to bring back the amount of threats and solutions to six instead of 15 (which are more abstract and harder to define). Many of the threats can fall in the same category and can generally (and thankfully) be dealt with, with the same piece of software.

Of the list of possible defense programs a firewall and a virus scanner are both required if you want any type of online safety. No computer owner without a firewall and a virus scanner that is directly connected to the Internet will avoid being attacked by Internet garbage. Whether it is a virus or spyware software that goes unseen the odds of having a PC without Internet garbage (Viruses and other malware) are about the same as outrunning a cheetah on a bicycle.

A firewall will stop outside sources from connecting to your PC unless we specifically permit it. This acts much like a good door on a house with barred windows. Unless we let someone in through the front door we will pretty much have full control of what gets into our house and what doesn't.

The second defense that we must install is a virus scanner. The virus scanner provides a good defense against most types of malicious software that could potentially harm your computer.

These two programs have to be updated regularly and be active whenever you are using your computer. Even if you are currently not connected to the Internet a virus scanner will help to root our viruses and other problems that could be hidden on floppy disks, CDs and other things we tend to stuff into our PCs.

Spyware, malware, adware and generally software that sits in the background and spies on you can be easily wiped out by running the occasional spyware scanner. These programs can be installed once in a while to weed out the worst of the spyware. Since these 'spying' programs generally don't do direct harm to your computer the scanners for them can be run occasionally to avoid any real problems.

This brings us to approximately three programs worth installing (firewall, virus scanner, and spyware scanner) which is considerably better than the 15 previously.

Combining the firewall with the virus scanner is often already possible as companies are finally starting to provide all-in-one defense solutions that will generally do an excellent job in protecting us from viruses and attacks all at the same time.