jbrown456

Jbrown456's Ultimate Guide To Computers And The General Computer World And Keeping Your Computer Running Well Guide
(do i ever shut-up?)

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TOC:

Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: A little about what spyware does
Chapter 3: Prevent the spyware
Chapter 4: Remove the spyware


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Chapter 1

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Keeping your computer running well is a must in todays computer world, i meen, all those hackers out there (and spamers), we can't be too carful. One of the main culprits in the spyware and virus world is downloading stuff. Yes, mainly that, and the unexperienced pc user seeing that ever so tempting free smileys ad. I love free smileys, but i don't want spyware, so that is why you see this and not a big .GIF image. Elders are some of the mainly targeted people, and also youger children. Children generally go to the game sites (www.gamesloth.com, www.coffeebreakarcade.com, www.mofunzone.com, the list is long), and there, the smiley people get the younger people playing there game. POPUP - FREE INSTANT MESSENGER AND E-MAIL SMILEYS. The unexperienced game player thinks, well what could happed? Lets go for it. Click, worst click, bad click. Sad click. This is the bad thing for all the people who maintain computers with children, or the unknowing parent who dosen't know how to fix the problem and ends up paying $50 to fix it.

With computer forums like the ones listed at the end of this paragraph, you can seek help from other people on fixing your problems, but without someone there who know what they are doing, it can be inposible to fix something.
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|Computer Forums:________________________|
| -http://www.itsallpc.co.uk |
| -http://www.computerforum.com |
| -http://www.computerforums.org |


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Chapter 2

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Some don't know what spyware is, or does. This chapter is just for them, read on to chapter 3 if you know what spyware does.

Spyware is a program that *usually* wants to collect information about you and what you do on your computer and send it back to it's main server, the server of the person of campany that made the spyware, this is called "calling home", because, the program is literally calling home. The server can do many things with this info, sometimes, the person is looking for credit card numbers, sometimes maby just the sites you surf, so they can target pop-ups related to the things you are doing, so you might have more interest in the pop-ups. For example, if you had spyware and the make assigned it to do this, and you googled free cursors, you might get a pop-up for comet cursor, a cursor changing piece of spyware.

The spyware usually, other that pop-ups, won't hurt anything, but, you never know, better to be safe than sorry. Spyware has never been harmful to me, except for slowing down my computer.



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Chapter 3

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On to how we pervent spyware.

We prevent spyware, by not downloading "to good to be true things", but if you really want the download, go to download.com, and read the user reviews about the product, and you will be able to tell if it is spyware. Thats about it in a nutshell.




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Chapter 4

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So, we have learned how to prevent spyware, but that dosen't mean we won't get it, so now, we have to learn how to get rid of it.

There is not a manual way to remove spyware very esily, so thats why we use anti-spyware programs such as the following:
-Spybot S&D
-Ad-Aware
-Microsoft Anti-Spyware

Together, these programs can make a great spyware free computer. But you have to rum them weekly and know how to use them.

All of these programs, and more, are available for free download at download.com, and remember, just because it says spyware free, that is usually never the case.




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Chapter 5

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Firewalls are an inportant part of a secure computer. They monitor what programs have access to the web, and what programs from the web have acess to your computer. A good firewall is Zone Lab's Zone Alarm Free Edition. Just keep this running (if you don't already have a firewall), and it will help a great deal.



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Chapter 6

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The only thing left to say is to use a good anti-virus software, and to scan your computer weekly. Remember, you can always check with a forum to see if a program is safe.









By: Jbrown456
-2005

Attached Files

computerguide.txt (5.1 KB, 87 views)