Jack Stoner
From:
Kansas City, MO
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Posted 1 Jun 2000 3:01 am |
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I had posted this comment, on another post, in reference to someone having a problem with a lot of disk activity on their PC.
After thinking about it, I deceided to post it as a separate topic as there are a lot of us that don't or didn't realize the amount of "intrusion" there is to our PC's and the data that is being collected while on line.
Here is the original answer to that post:
One other thing I've just thought about. If this is happening primarily on line, it could be that there's files that have been placed on your computer by some site(s) that are sending back statistical info. I down loaded a "free" solitaire game that wound being ad supported software and everytime I went on line it was updating the ads that popped up during the game. Some of the Active X controls that are installed on the machine will do similar things. You will see extra activity on the PC and on the data link even when you are not doing anything.
I downloaded a program called OPTOUT which will search for "spyware" and remove it. I think I downloaded it from ZDNET but here is a link to their site http://grc.com/optout.htm
Optout won't remove all the garbage but it will get rid of the ad stuff. However, once you remove the ad garbage the ad supported software will no longer run.
One irony, a lot of the "freebie" software that ZDnet has available is the ad supported stuff. They make the ad supported stuff available but then make a program available to defeat it....
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