Saturday, September 27, 2008

Yahoo teams with McAfee to offer search results security

Technorati Profile
Yahoo Inc. and McAfee Inc. are joining to offer alerts about potentially dangerous Web sites alongside search results generated at Yahoo.com
With the new security feature - slated to take effect Tuesday - people who search the Internet using Yahoo will see a red exclamation point and a warning next to links McAfee has identified as serving dangerous downloads or using visitors' e-mail addresses to send out spam.

Dangerous downloads can include "adware," which shows unwanted advertisements; "spyware," which secretly tracks users' keystrokes and other actions; and other malicious programs that can give criminals control over users' computers.

Yahoo and McAfee hope the move will quell users' anxiety about accidentally clicking on malicious links.

"Yahoo users have clearly told us that among the most important concerns for them are all these lurking threats on the Internet," said Priyank Garg, director of product management for Yahoo's search division. "They know the damage they can do but they don't know how to protect themselves."

Yahoo has decided to simply nuke the worst offenders - sites that attempt "drive-by downloads," or trying to automatically install malicious code on visitors' computers by exploiting coding flaws in their Web browsers.

If McAfee has identified a site as having employed such tactics, Yahoo users won't see the link at all.

"When a user gets a set of search results, there's really no indication of who's a good guy and who's a bad guy," said Tim Dowling, vice president of McAfee's Web Security Group. "You're really leaping off a platform of faith that you're clicking on a site that's safe and not one that's bad. And the bad guys really try hard to look good."

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Learning About Spyware Removal

removal is essential for proper computer functioning, and so if you do not already have a working spyware removal tool on your computer then it is important that you find one as soon as possible. Know that there are quite a few different worthwhile choices out there, but before you can decide on the right one for you, you will need to need to understand a bit more about spyware itself.

What is ?

is basically a sort of umbrella term, one that is used to describe any software that works by performing tasks such as advertising, collecting personal information or changing the configuration of your computer. can significantly slow down the processes and speed of your computer and can therefore quickly become a serious problem on any computer system.

is also often associated with software that displays advertisements known as adware, or software that tracks personal and sensitive information. It is important that you take precautions and care whenever you are downloading anything onto your computer even if you think it is completely safe, because you may be downloading spyware along with it. Make sure that you carefully read all disclosures including the license agreement and privacy statement and remember that sometimes the inclusion of unwanted software in a given software installation is documented but other times it may appear at the end of a license agreement or privacy statement and most times you will not even notice it at all.

After An Infection

Once you do have spyware on your computer then you are going to have to use the proper spyware removal tool to get rid of it. Some Internet service providers include anti spyware software in their service packages. But if not and you have a Windows network then you can use Windows Defender, which comes with Windows Vista. All you need to do is run the tool to scan your computer for spyware with this spyware remover and then review any files that have been discovered, select suspicious files for removal and then quarantine or remove them.

There are many other spyware removal software programs and tools available that you can use, and it is important that you take the time to choose not only the one that sounds the best but the one that is going to be best suited for you and your computer system needs. Also make sure to keep up to date on all the updates for the most effective spyware removal.