The majority of the spyware programs seem to be from ActiveX installations that are encountered while visiting a web page. These are the pop up boxes that list the name of the company as well as the name of the program and ask you, the users, if you would like to install them. There may be some wording saying that you need to install the program to be able to view the web page correctly. For the most part, that is a lie. Macromedia and Shockwave are two programs that are installed with ActiveX that are needed to view some web pages correctly. If these are not the names of the programs then I would close the ActiveX box as well as the web page that was trying to load the software and go back to Google and try to find the same information somewhere else that does not have the pop up installations as part of their web page.

Take a look at Spyware Warrior on the web. You will find a wealth of information about anti-spyware programs that are available to help combat the problem. They have a very good comparison of a number of anti-spyware programs showing what each will and won’t do. Their anti-spyware test was an eye opening for me since it seems to confirm what I have been telling my customers for a very long time and that is that they are for the most part the root of their own problems. It is not all your fault since the spyware installation programs aren’t really playing fair when you think that you are installing one program and end up with fifteen others. It was all spelled out there for you in the license agreement if you had read it. But you did not read it, did you?

The first group of tests that were run by Spyware Warrior was the removal of the spyware that is installed along with a program called Grokster which is available as a free download from CNET’s download.com. Along with the program you also get an assortment of spyware such as Claria, 411 Ferret/ActiveSearch, AdRoar, Altnet/BDE, BroadcastPC, Cydoor, Flashtrack, MyWay/Mybar, SearchLocate/SideBar, Topsearch, TVMedia, VX2/ABetterInternet, Browser Hijack, two different TopMoxie programs (branded by WebRebates), and several other programs that have not yet been identified. And it is all agreed to in the license agreement that you have to click in order to install the Grokster program. Sounds like a pretty nice program doesn’t it? I think I will just listen to the radio instead.

There were also two other groups of tests so take some time and go to their website and get the full picture of what you are up against. The second group included the installation of 25 different adware and spyware programs that were picked up at a web site called the Innovators of Wrestling. The third group included the installation of 23 different programs that were installed by surfing through 3 web sites, 007 Arcade Games, Lyrics Domain and Innovators of Wrestling. I took a quick look at 007 Arcade Games and was impressed at the initial page. It is a very nicely done page that steps you through the installation of the ActiveX Control and how to override Internet Explorer when it stops the control from popping up.

As I said earlier, if you have to install a program to look at a website and the program is not one of the well know programs like Macromedia or Shockwave, I would be very skeptical about visiting the site in the future. There are to many legitimate sites available on the web that do not try to install spyware on your system to waste you time on a site that is trying to damage you computer.

The end result of their testing showed that there is not one single anti-spyware software that is available on the market today that will find and remove all of the spyware that you could load on your system. For this reason I would continue to suggest that you use two programs to keep your systems clean. There are five programs listed on their site that they officially recommend. I would have to concur with their listing since I have been using two from the list and have not had any problems on any of my systems as well as the systems that we clean.

The programs are, in alphabetical order, Ad-aware, Microsoft Antispyware beta, Pest Patrol, Spybot Search & Destroy and Webroot Spy Sweeper. If you want to choose two of these and install them on your system you should be fine. Be sure to take a look at spywarewarrior.com. Hopefully we can get some of you scared straight.