There seems to be an endless barage of spyware programs affecting Windows. Thankfully, there is almost no affect on Mac OSX at the present time. Likewise, Macs are rarely ever affected by viruses. But they can be the carrier of one. So if you send an email that has a virus in an attachment, it won't affect the Mac, but it could affect someone if it is forwarded.
I use Spybot to try and have some control over my systems, the following are a few suggestions on how to secure a system using Spybot. Which I find to be the best overall. And free. (I would encourage you to send them some money, they deserve $5.00 or $10.00 for their work.)
[Disclaimer. This procedure can really mess up a few programs on your computer that you may want, so proceed with caution. If you are in doubt, don't delete a program and search on Google. Also, if the program shows up after running step 5. I would say you can always delete it. I personally have never had a problem deleting something there. And as usual, I accept no legal responsibility, try at your own risk.]
Before you get started. Run Windows Update (Icon on your Start Menu), and download all available updates. Do this on a regular basis.
Ok, once you install Spybot (by double-clicking on the file you downloaded from the above link), do the following:
Follow the wizard that runs.
Backup the registry.
Download and install the updates.
Immunize the system (until you do this, the updates don't take effect.)
Then proceed to using the program.
I then do the following, and I reccomend you do this at LEAST once a month. Weekly would be better.
1. [In Windows] - Make only one person on your system the Administrator (This is done in Windows XP by going into Control Panel, click on "Users", and "Change the account type" to Limited).
2. [Back to Spybot] - Click on "Mode", "Advanced Mode", and then click on "Tools" at the bottom of the page on the left.
3. Then click on "System Startup" on the left. (This is a little tricky if you are not familiar with computers be careful). But generally speaking, unwanted programs will not identify themselves. They will just have a "Value" and a "Command Line":
Here is a an example of a good and bad program:
Good Example
Key Value Command Line
Startup (common) Sony Wireless LAN Client Manager C:\Program Files\Sony\Client Manager\CSMON.EXE
BAD Example
Key Value Command Line
HK_LM:Run WildTangent wt.dll
Since I don't have any problems with my system, I can't even give a good example. I made up the above bad example. The thing that I do is if I recognize a program (Like Sony or Logitech), I generally go to the next one, but if I don't recognize the name, I simply go to www.google.com and type in the name. If it says "bad stuff" about the program, I delete the entry. Another thing is, the yellow line means it starts for all users (and most likely is ok, but not always).
4. You can now click on "Resident", and if you see something you know is bad, you can kill it immediately. Like "Hitbox" or "Casino" or "Gator", kill it.
5. Now you are ready to click on "Spybot-S&D". Then click on "Check for Problems". This can take some time, it is ok to let run and come back to it. But it uses alot of the computer processor, so don't do anything intense while you are doing this. (Like editing a video on your computer for example.) If it doesn't fina a problem (doubtful), then you are done. If it finds a of problems, go to the next step. NOTE: The average I have seen is 50-120. And even after I run this, two days later I have seen an additional 50 problems. Then after running it a second time (after having rebooted), it seems to go away for a while.
6. If Spybot finds problems, it will offer a box "Remove Selected Problems". Of course click "Yes". In some cases it will ask you to reboot to continue to fix the problem. This means they are running on your system at that moment and cannot even be removed. So.... save your files, and reboot. Spybot will run first before any other program, and fix the additional problems.
7. You should be done at this point. Do this regularly (and don't forget to floss as well).
8. Next, and this is important! You must do this procedure for all users on the computer. In other words, log in as each user and run Spybot as I describe.
9. Don't forget to "Search for Updates" on a regular basis, and after downloading them, click on "Immunize", and then click on the "Green +" at the top of the page. Then run "Search for Problems".
I know it is a pain to have to do this, but I have worked on literally dozens of computers to help them remove all of this. Some were so bad you could not even boot the system. It is well worth the trouble.
