Free Adware And Spyware Programs

Most people are conscious of the proliferation of viruses, bugs, trojans, worms, spyware and other malicious malware on the Internet, but millions of individuals, including long-time surfers are hit each day. How can that be, you may think.

Well, sometimes, people forget to set automatic updates of the virus database, sometimes the antivirus software is not set up properly and occasionally it merely gets switched off by accident or by software.

It is not unusual for automatic antivirus software updates to get switched off by accident or design. It has happened to me two times this year already. Luckily, Windows 7 warned me and I took notice of that warning and, most importantly, I fixed the issue.

This is the most important point. If your computer warns you about something, especially regarding security, do not put off doing something about it. In fact, drop what you are doing and correct the problem instantly.

If you leave you computer open to assault by malevolent software, you will suffer. It is no use imagining that you are safe because you do not do online banking or because you do not have sensitive data on your computer, because you have.

Your acquaintances and colleagues entrusted you with their email addresses and names on the understanding that you safeguard their privacy.

Some malware just seeks the addresses in your email client software. Then it will gather those details and spam your friends to distraction. Two of my friends let that happen this year and the only solution for both of them was to open a new email address and reformat their hard drive.

For instance, I was receiving financial advice from my next door neighbour's ten-year old child. It was spam coming from Eastern Europe but it was done as if it came from him. He had been hacked and his address book had been copied to spammers. I had hundreds of junk email for weeks.

And do not think that you can merely create a filter to send it to the bin. You cannot, because they forge the email headers so that it seems to your anti spam software that every email comes from a new address, the result of which is that your spam filter does not recognise it as spam.

This is bad enough, but it can become far worse. Spyware can sit on your computer reading the keys that you press and transmitting the data back to the person in charge so that they can spam you on what you just typed.

Does that sound familiar? Today you send email to a friend saying that you are going to repaper and the next day you receive unsolicited email promotions about paint and wallpaper.

If all this sounds familiar, then you have to take action. Enter 'free anti virus software' into a search engine and set it up properly. If you have AV software already, check the settings. You have to enable automatic updates.

If you leave your computer always on that is all you have to do, but if you switch it off when not in use, set the updates to occur when you switch it on.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on many topics, but is now involved with the best virus protection software. If you have an interest in such issues, please go over to our website now at Computer Antivirus Software Suite