Spyware, Malware and Everything in Between

An In-depth Look at Nick Skrepetos' SUPERAntiSpyware.Com

You're online, and you're lazily browsing site after site, tediously looking for something new or something exciting to occupy both your boredom and time. You look at one site about dogs and the fine art in training them and think, yeah, my dog

already does these tricks. So you move on to the next site and then it happens: A pop-up appears on your screen telling you that you may have been infected with spyware. If you are like most people, myself included, you believe that it is nothing more than some lame pop-up trying to coax you into buying the next, best security tool available. And if you're like me, you probably just closed the window down and continued on with your web surfing.

Everything seems fine for a while until you begin to actually notice that your machine is running slower than normal or that sometimes, your Internet Explorer keeps crashing on you. In other cases, you notice that programs are taking unusually longer to just start up than they normally have before. There is usually a very good explanation behind these phenomenons and you had been given your first clue as to what's happening when you were visiting the site on dog training.

Congratulations, you have just been infected with spyware!

So just what exactly is spyware? Well, spyware is just a general term used for software that performs certain behaviors such as advertising (pop-ups), collecting personal information, or even changing the configuration of your computer, generally without obtaining your consent. A couple of major clues that you might notice are:

You see pop-up advertisements even when you're not on the Web.

Your Web browser home page (the page your browser first opens to) or your browser search settings have changed without your knowledge.

You notice a new toolbar in your browser that you didn't want, and you find it difficult to get rid of.

Your computer takes longer than usual to complete certain tasks.

You experience a sudden rise in computer crashes.

Your desktop background has been changed to an ad, telling you that you are infected.