Spyware Remover... A Cautious Review

A spyware remover program that came across my desk just the other day. No Adware is anti-malware software that professes to have a solution that will:

• Perform a web bug scan... A web bug scan will search your computer for web bugs, which are either a small graphic in either an email message or on a web page. What this little piece of code will do is monitor the web pages or e-mails that you are reading. THAT is pretty scary stuff indeed! Web bugs are very small, usually 1 pixel by 1 pixel and are represented as HTML or IMG tags.

• Kill adware.... these are the little cookies and bots that put ads on your computer whenever you load up a web page.

• Stop dialers.... the unauthorized use of your Internet connection via dial-up.

• Eliminate Spyware... pretty self explanatory, stop people from snooping into your online and computer activity.

The makers of No Adware state that they also offer PC immunization. By that they state they have a system that will prevent those infuriating yes/no boxes that pop up asking you for permission to install adware and/or spyware.

Here is how they do it: If you just happen to install an item that is in No Adware's list of blocked items, that spyware or adware will be prevented from being installed on your computer.

Here is a neat feature: Many slimy web site operators will try to wiggle their way into your favourites list, hoping for that ever valuable click to their site.

A Recent study shines a light on Internet Explorer... should you drop it?

A new study found that one of every 67 webpages exploits a vulnerability in Internet Explorer. One in 62 domains contained at least one scripted drive-by download attack.

The study, by a group of researchers at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington, also found that Firefox was significantly more capable of blocking spyware attacks.

A small number of infectious domains are responsible for the majority of infectious links and can infect a computer whether or not a user responds "yes" to a security prompt. In 0.4% of the URLs examined, drive-by downloads were attempted and 0.2% of URLs that exploit IE browser vulnerabilities.

Comparatively, only 0.08% of URLs were able to get by Firefox security and those required user consent in order to succeed.

The study also showed high concentrations of spyware at gaming, screensaver, and celebrity sites.

Conclusion? Cease using Internet Explorer! I know you may be shocked, but Microsoft’s internet browser has more holes in it than your spaghetti strainer! One alternative is Mozilla’s Firefox, available for free download at Mozilla.org.

After installing the browser, it will automatically transfer your bookmarks/favorites and settings over to Firefox. Also, please make sure Firefox is your default browser. Using Firefox will reduce the amount of spyware and adware on your computer by 75%.

What No Adware does is allow you to stop that cold just by clicking on a PROTECT IE (Internet Explorer) FAVORITES button. In fact, No Adware will alert you and ask for your authorization on all 'Ad to Favorites' requests, both yours and the unauthorized ones.

Scheduled Scans for Malware.

With over 35,000,000 downloads of their free malware scan software, coupled with the mostly positive reviews, I would venture a safe guess that No Adware is software worth giving a try in the fight against all computer pests.

By: Dwight Brown