Adware, Spyware, and Security Updates: Isn't It Fun

If you so much as remotely glance at computer articles on the Internet, chances are you have an idea what spyware is. It's that nasty software that hides within your system to bring you twenty times the popups, a 30% reduction in system speed, and 500 times the headaches that Windows alone will give you.

But you use a Mac, right?

Thankfully, there doesn't seem to be any spyware out there for the Mac right now. If you don't happen to use a Mac, or if you've got a PC as well, you might have a bit more trouble. It seems like almost everywhere you go on the Internet, your PC is susceptible to being infected by these nasty, virus-like programs that render your computer almost as useless as, well, Windows 1.1.

I'd love to tell you that there's an easy way to get rid of them, but unfortunately that's not the case. While there are tools like Ad-Aware and Spybot, they simply don't remove everything. I recently had a major spyware infection on my PC, and I had to actually start up in safe mode (similar to booting a Mac with the extensions off) and remove the infected files myself. And you'll just love to know that often they take the names of some "official-sounding" software. Something named WindUpdate.exe could be watching every move that you make, on your own computer.

But you've got a Macintosh, so you don't need to worry. Or do you?

Security Updates

Right now it seems that virus and spyware writers are more interested in people with unupdated Windows PCs. There's nothing they love to see more than someone running, say, Windows 98, with absolutely no security updates installed. And for many Windows users, that's the case.

On your Mac, however, OS 9 really has no security updates, and if that's what you're running, you shouldn't have to worry. Virus and spyware authors couldn't care less about the classic Mac OS these days, since it's only going to decrease in popularity as people replace their hardware with new G4 and G5 machines preloaded with OS X.

Mac OS X, however, has security updates, and I'd recommend that you install them. While the Mac user base is relatively small, there is a chance that spyware authors will realize the potential for spreading their evil software throughout the Macintosh-using community as well. Keeping up with security updates and system patches is a good idea.

Apple has released several security updates recently.

Cookies

Now, how about some cookies? Unfortunately, these kinds of cookies aren't edible, and they can be potentially harmful as well. If you have a PC or have a friend with a PC, run a Spybot scan of the system, and it's guaranteed to have at least one "nasty" cookie. Spybot lets you view privacy policies of the companies that distribute these, and I recommend that you read some of them.

While they're often relatively harmless, only giving out information that you supply them, occasionally they can be quite bad. Some of them collect any personally identifiable information that they can find and follow your every move on the Web. The bad part about all this is that it's not just PC users who are affected. Mac users can get these things, too, so it's a good idea once in a while to browse the contents of your cookies folder, deleting things relating to advertising, since this is what most frequently collects information.

Of course, it's pointless to waste every moment of your time trying to find and delete things that you're not even sure are present in the first place. If advertising companies want to see what websites I visit, let them. If they really care that I spent a half hour at the BBC News website, 25 minutes at Low End Mac, 45 minutes at eBay, and 35 minutes searching Google for tools to remove spyware and cookies, that's their business.

Editor's note: As an occasional Windows user, I've been very happy with the free adware and spyware scanner included with the latest beta of the Yahoo toolbar. The only sad thing is that you have to launch Internet Explorer to use it, as Yahoo doesn't yet support the more secure, more robust Mozilla family of browsers. dk