Are your PC infected with Adware and/or Spyware viruses? Seven most obvious signs of adware or spyware virus infection
Are your PC infected?
It is estimated that over 90% of all computers that have Internet access are infected with Adware and/or Spyware viruses.
Almost all websites are using cookies to track your browsing habits (not this one, though). So, your PC gets infected while you simply surf the Internet or if you have ever downloaded screensavers, music, games, video clips, images, and even those "smiley face" icons that have been going around the past few months.
If your PC has any of Adware/Spyware infection symptoms - increased number of pops, slower internet connection, strange toolbars, 1-900 calls on your phone bill - your PC needs an anti-adware/anti-spyware tool. You can find a lot of those – some great and some really bad - and it is often hard to tell one from another. We tested a dozen of anti-spyware tools and came up with this list.
Seven most obvious signs of adware or spyware virus infection
Internet browser’s home page has mysteriously changed.
You change it back manually, but before long you find that it has changed
back again.
You get pop-up advertisements when your browser is not running
or when your system is not even connected to the Internet.
Your phone bill includes expensive calls to 900 numbers
that you never made-probably at an outrageous per-minute rate.
A new item appears in your Favorites list or on your Desktop
without your putting it there. No matter how many times you
delete it, the item always reappears later.
Your system runs noticeably slower than it did before.
If you're a Windows 2000/XP user, launching the Task Manager and clicking
the Processes tab reveals a lot of unfamiliar processes.
The send or receive lights on your dial-up or broadband modem
blink at a time when you're not doing anything online just
as wildly as when you're downloading a file or surfing the Web.
A search toolbar or other browser toolbar appears
even though you didn't request or install it. Your attempts to remove
it fail, or it comes back after removal.
