Spyware:Â Do you have a problem?

Spyware will sneak its way on to your computer without you knowing and without asking you for permission to do so – so how can you know that you are being spied on? Spyware which is stealing people’s private information, credit card details and passwords effects around 60 per cent of computers.

There are a few tell-tail signs that you should look out for so you can act and sort out the problem.

Homepage;

Hijacker programmers take over your own homepage and replace it for one of their own choosing – if you suddenly see your homepage replaced from a friendly BBC webpage to one of an advertising agency pushing their agenda then you can be pretty sure that you are being attacked by a Hijacker.

Crash Time;

Do you find that you are merrily having a play on your computer and then all of a sudden it crashes and your left looking at a black, lifeless screen? If so then you probably have a Malware problem. There are other reasons for having a randomly crashing computer but you won’t be going wrong by searching for and eradicating any Malware.

Pop-Ups;

You could be trundling along online, going from site to site, enjoying your fun on the net when suddenly an unwanted pop-up flies into your face. The trick comes when you try and get it off your screen – by pressing accept or cancel you are basically initialising a download which you don’t want at all – stop it as soon as possible and get out of there!

Emails;

Have a look in your Sent folder in your emails – if there are a number of weird emails in the folder and you have no idea where they have come from then don’t panic. You have either lost the plot or you have a Spyware issue.

Favourites;

Some people take a lot of care and pride over the favourites list – for some it is a key to their favourite sites and for others it is just an easy way of getting to Facebook – whatever your reasons for using favourites take a check and see if there are any weird websites in with yours…they could be little traps!

Sluggish Computer;

If your computer has been performing exceptionally slowly recently then you might have an infestation on your hands – if your computer takes an age to load, years to open a software and a decade to shut down then you should realise that there is a problem.

Hard Drive With a Mind of its Own;

Take a listen for your hard drive…is it running even though it has been left to its own devices for hours? Then you have a problem! Check the hard drive light if you have one and you can see if it is active or not and if it doesn’t want to relax then you need to sort it out!

What about you?

Do you hate Spyware as much as us? What tips could you suggest to curing the problems? Let us know…