"HOW TO REMOVE SPYWARE"

When you surf the internet you may visit some websites that secretly load small programs into your computer without you knowing. Sometimes called cookies these programs are usually harmless. But some are not so harmless.

Some of these programs spy on you. They look for your email address, your name, and even your phsical address on the hard drive of your computer. They keep track of what websites you visited to see what sort of things interest you. The next time you get on the internet they send this data to a secret email address without you knowing. These programs are called 'spyware'.

If you get a lot of these programs on your computer and they are all sending information on you to some unknown reciever your internet speed will drastically be reduced or even come to a stand-still.

What kind of websites do this to your computer? Game sites, porn sites, and scams like "Install this software and your computer will always have the precise time" or "Install our search engine software on your computer and you'll fing lots of great deals over the internet".

Follow the steps on the right to remove these programs and speed up your computer.

  • go to LavaSoft and download the free software called Ad-Aware
  • install the Ad-Aware program on your computer
  • run the Ad-Aware program
  • look at each item it finds in the list and uncheck any items that have a vendor of microsoft. Also uncheck Alexa. Uncheck anything else that has a vendor name you trust. You don't want these things deleted. Only checked items are removed.
  • Remove (delete) all the other items found. They are probally spyware programs.
  • See if your computer runs faster now.
  • Ad-Aware can usually find and delete hundreds of spyware programs but a few stubborn ones can't be deleted by Ad-Aware. Ad-Aware will tell you if there are any it can't delete.