Saturday, August 9, 2014

Beating Adware, The Sneakiest Software

By Joel Walsh

Promoters of adware, software that shows advertising on a user's computer, use some cunning tricks to get you to install their software on your machine. Here's what to look out for.

Adware is, by definition, something reasonable people don't want on their computers. That's why malware can't just come out and ask people to install it. Often, the computer owner is completely unaware of it being installed. But not always.

When adware doesn't want to sneak in through an open window, it will try to trick you into letting it in through the front door. Don't think you could be tricked? Don't be so sure until you've checked out these most common ways people have been tricked into allowing malware to be installed on their machines.

Adware Installation Trick 1: Piggybacking

• How it works: malware may come bundled with a legitimate piece of software the user actually wants, such as a game or emoticon. The malware is merely labeled "companion software," without any indication of what it will do.

• How to fight it: be very suspicious of any software that comes bundled with other software. Don't installed software that comes bundled with other software unless you know everything that the bundled software does. After all, if the bundled program has anything to do with the program you actually want, why couldn't the software developer just get both programs' functionalities into a single piece of software? Software developers are now very sensitive to malware concerns and will provide a lengthy explanation of just why the bundled software is necessary, in the cases when they actually do need to use bundled software.

Adware Installation Trick 2: Bait and Switch

• How it works: since people are getting more and more suspicious of bundled software, the malware's developers may simply label it as valuable software, for instance, a browser plugin that supposedly accelerates web browsing (but in reality only shows ads).

• How to fight it: again, a suspicious mind is useful in avoiding malware. Ask yourself some questions:

o What will this software actually do? Malware often comes with very fuzzy claims attached. Sure, it says it will improve your browsing experience, but how? Often, this improved browsing experience just means a browsing experience with more advertising.

o If the software is so great, why is it being given away free? Most commonly, software is only given out free in two cases: if it's OpenSource (designed by a community of developers and not proprietary--OpenSource software is always clearly labeled as such); or simply a come-on for a fuller-featured version of the software. If neither case is true, there's a real chance the software is financed by adware.

Adware Installation Trick 3: Outright Lying

• How it works: malware may even be labeled as something else entirely, such as a well-known piece of software or a crucial component of the computer operating system.

• How to fight it: this is the trickiest malware of all, and requires extreme caution. You don't want to start deleting any of your program files, much less your system registry entries, unless you're absolutely sure it's malware. Plenty of overzealous parasite hunters have shot their own machines to bits this way. This is one case where you want to be using an anti-spyware program, and preferably a second anti-spyware program to provide a second opinion.

Getting Rid of Adware

Adware is so tricky that trying to uninstall it by yourself could be like a trip into the Matrix. Luckily, there are good anti-spyware programs that tackle adware as well--after all many adware programs are also spyware since they monitor your internet usage.

True, it may feel like adding insult to injury to have to install more software to get rid of software you never meant to install in the first place. But sometimes you just have to fight fire with fire.

Are Color Laserjet Printers worth the money?

By Stuart Simpson

The next printer you’ll want on your desk is a color laser printer. Forget those cheap outdated inkjet printers. They are cheap for one reason, to get you to buy ink. I’m not making that up. It came right from an executive of a leading inkjet printer manufacturer.

Do you have a black and white laser printer? These gems are the best for the home office. Cheap, guilt free printing with high quality usually reserved for a large office. The price is right on the home models. You can almost buy one for the cost of a black and a color ink cartridge.

But let’s talk about color laser jet printers. A color laser jet works just like a black printer except it has 4 toner cartridges. Each one has its own life. The base printers I was looking at had a recommended monthly volume of up to 30,000 pages. Don’t think I’ll have that much.

Photo printing is a must these days and you want to print your pictures without the fear of using up all the ink. Digital cameras are everywhere, but getting the pictures printed in photo quality seems to be the biggest drawback to the cameras. Enter the color laserjet printer.

Speed is a big factor in printing. At home, I’m usually not in a big hurry, so I’ll spend less and wait. I’ll send stuff to the printer and check it later when it’s done. You can save a bunch if you don’ t need speed. The HP2600n is my pick for a home color laser printer. The Hewlett Packard was also selected as “PC Magazine Editor’s Choice” award.

Let me give you the scoop. First, price. Don’t be afraid. $400. Yes, that’s all for a color laser jet. Speed? 8 pages per minute. 16 meg of RAM, but the 2600n is network ready for the small or home office.

For comparison, I looked at the 2500L. This HP model was faster at 20 ppm black but only 4 ppm in color. It did have more memory – 64MB as compared to 16MB, but it was not network ready. Price? Same.

The one thing that tipped me over the edge to the 2600n was that all 4 toner cartridges were right in the front. I personally examined this unit today and the quality is dead on with Hewlett Packard’s reputation in the printing industry.

The price and quality are hard to beat.

Alternatives for Doing Your Own Printing in Color

By Nicky Pilkington

When you have color printing needs, your first choice is probably a professional printer. Nowadays, the advancements in technology have made it possible for you to create print jobs in color that rival those of professional printers. Depending on the type of color printing you need, there are essentially two paths you can take to create your own color masterpieces.

The first option for printing in color from home is to use a color printer that connects to your desktop or laptop computer. You first need a computer or access to one. The computer needs to have printer software. There are numerous applications on the market that provide templates to help you with printing in color. These applications are generally inexpensive. You will also need paper that is designed for printing in color. If you will be doing a variety of printing in color, a good choice is a pack of paper that includes various sizes and styles. For example, paper that works best for color photographs is generally glossy. On the other hand, if you are planning to create a brochure, invitations, or business cards, paper that has a matte finish is probably a better choice.

Finally, you will of course need a printer. The type of printer you need depends on the type of printing in color you will be performing. Color laser printers offer the best quality, but this type of printer is only an absolute necessity when you need the best quality such as when printing full-color catalogs. For basic color needs an inkjet printer will do the trick. Be careful, not all ink jet printers that offer printing in color are the same. Your best bet is an inkjet printer with 4800 x 1200-dpi. This will enable you to print the best quality. Even if you don’t think you will need such high-quality color printing, you may need to do so later in the future.

Your second option for doing your own printing in color is to purchase a commercial printing press. A printing press is the best option when you want to print large quantities of a project in color. You may not have considered buying your own printing press because they are generally very expensive. Brand new printing presses can be very expensive. The inexpensive option is to purchase a used printing press. There are a number of ways that you can find used printing presses. The Internet is a popular choice because you can conveniently and quickly search for what you want. You may want to search Ebay, one of the top shopping resources on the Internet. Other options such as your local newspaper or auctions are great resources, but you will need to do a little legwork.

Like using a home printer, you will need a computer to produce the layout of the document that you want to print in color. When you are ready to print the document you just need to create your plates that will act as your printing template. Once you create your plate you can print as many copies as you need. The only disadvantage of buying a printing press is that if the machine malfunctions it may cost you some money to have it repaired.

Regardless of the option you choose, you can accomplish your personal color printing needs and do so without spending a lot of money.

Adware Installation Stealth Tactics

By Joel Walsh

When adware can't trick you into installing it, it often resorts to a secretive invasion. Find out how to defend yourself.

Adware Installation Stealth Tactic 1: Expensive Freebie

• How it works: adware may get installed with so-called free software without any mention of it being included anywhere in the software's license or documentation. Or any mention of the bundled software is buried deep within a click-wrap licensing agreement.

• How to protect yourself: It's become an endlessly repeated cliché, but it's true: only install software from developers you trust. That doesn't mean you can never try any software from a new company. Just familiarize yourself with the developer's reputation before opening wide your hard drive. Search the developer's name on search engines. If a dozen anti-spyware advertisements are listed alongside the search results, that's not a good sign.

• How to fight back: If you've already downloaded the expensive freebie, it's probably too late to simply uninstall it. The bundled adware will likely stick around on your computer long after the software that came with it has been sent to the recycling bin. Instead, you need to use an anti-spyware program, and preferably two to be sure.

Tactic 2. Adware Drive-by

• How it works: adware may hide in a website's code and download itself automatically onto the site visitor's hard drive. This is often called a "drive-by" installation.

• How to protect yourself: drive-by installations of software tend to happen on obscure commercial websites, rather than personal homepages, blogs, or the websites of established businesses. If you can avoid surfing in those kinds of rough waters, you'll be a lot safer from adware attacks.

• How to fight back: If you do suspect that a site has downloaded software onto your computer, close it immediately and fire up your anti-spyware and antivirus software. You may also want to delete your browser's cache and also any program downloads folders and temporary internet folders, just in case the adware is a new kind of adware that isn't in your anti-spyware software's database yet.

Tactic 3: The Old-Fashioned Way: Email

• How it works: you know the drill: just as with viruses, adware may come as an email attachment. The stealth part is that simply not opening attachments may not be enough to protect you. The attachment may not display an attachment icon and is set to auto-install as soon as the message is opened.

• How to protect yourself: make sure your email software does not open attached files automatically. With most new email software applications the option to block automatic downloads of attached files is set as the default. But to be really safe, you should set your anti-spyware software to automatically monitor all email.

• How to fight back: delete the offending email without opening it or the attachment (assuming that hasn't happened already). Run a full scan of your hard drive using anti-spyware and antivirus software.

A Basic Introduction To Spyware

By Philippa Smith

Spyware is the most troublesome software to appear on the
Internet in recent times. When spyware infects a computer
system, it may be relatively harmless or it may be
devastating.

Spyware like coolwebsearch and new.net are capable of
paralyzing a computer system. Laws to regulate spyware are
pending in many states and may take years to enforce.

What Is Spyware?

Spyware is any software that collects information about
computer usage and/or the computer user. It is installed on
one computer and sends information to another computer.
Some spywares like the Weather Bug, Bear Share and Kazaa
are knowingly downloaded and installed by users. Other
spyware is installed without the knowledge or permission of
the user.

How Does Spyware Affect A Computer?

Symptoms of spyware infection includes:

* Very slow system performance while browsing the Internet.
* Your homepage changing mysteriously on its own.
* Excessive appearance of pop-ups, on sites likes Google,
Yahoo and MSN, which don't use them.
* You can only get your browser to visit sites, which are
trying to dupe you into buying spy ware removal software.

Many spyware detection and elimination programs are easily
available for free on the Internet.

How Does One Deal With Spyware?

There are many tools and catalogues available to deal with
spyware. One of these tools is Spybot Search and Destroy.
It scans computers for spyware and harmful programs. It
shows a list of problem areas to the user and allows him to
delete any or all of them.

A user can leave legitimate programs installed by him.
These may include peer-to-peer file sharing software or
software installed to monitor the on-line activities of
children.

A Comprehensive Solution

It may be a good idea for most computer owners to get a
comprehensive PC security solution as a bundle. Norton and
McAfee, now offer a complete security suite consisting of
anti-virus, personal firewall, anti-spam and privacy
offerings, and anti-spy ware.

They are quite easy to install and allow parents to monitor
children who use the computer. There are many threats on
the Internet, from which these suites can protect your
computer.
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6 Powerful Truths About SEO That You Don’t Know

By Jason DeVelvis

Everywhere you turn on the ‘net, you see something about search engine optimization. I’m convinced that 90 f the information about SEO is regurgitated crap. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll be the first to admit that you can’t do anything without a well-optimized web page. If your web page sucks, the search engines will treat it as such. But now, search engines have shifted their focus from the web site in question to the pages that link to the site.

There are quite a few offpage factors about a page that is linking to you that can increase or decrease the backlink value quite a bit, and I’m going to cover most of these factors in this article.

Many authors have covered the basic need for backlinks, so I won’t go into it here. However, if you’d like to learn more about backlinking, check out another article I wrote: http://www.content-articles.com/article.aspx?i=24

5 Steps to Remove Spyware for Free

By Rafael Nunez

Have you ever tried to remove Spyware off your PC only to
find out it never left or it came back? Tired of all those
annoying Popups, Viruses, and Ads on your system day in and
day out? Well, listen closely because the day has come to
remove Spyware programs and Viruses - forever!

I will give you some very useful tricks and tips to remove
Spyware and Viruses for good! Follow closely:


Steps to Remove Spyware, Viruses, and Adware

1. There are many types of software available today that
claim to remove spyware off our system, but which one REALLY
does the job? What you need is software that not only will
remove spyware, but TOTALLY removes it for good and keeps it
off. After searching for the best of the best, here is THE
BEST: Panda Online Scan. Why? It does not constantly run
on your system, slowing it down and using bunches of memory!
In other words, it runs from Panda on the web, then searches
your whole system, will remove spyware and other bugs, then
gives detailed info on the bug and tells you how to keep it
off your system! Here is the address to get started:

http://www.stopspywareforfree.com/scan.html

It only installs a few plug-ins to run on your system, and
no full installation!

2. Check your system services and systray items! The
biggest mistake people make is never checking what programs
are running in the background or memory of the system. A key
step to remove spyware from your system is knowing this.
Without knowing these things, you probably have bugs running
on your system, and never know it! Why? They like to hide!
Download and install a program called HIJACK THIS. It tells
you exactly what is running and what is not running so you
know exactly what might be hiding behind closed doors! Here
is the address for this:

http://www.stopspywareforfree.com/hijackthis.html

3. Shutdown the SYSTEM RESTORE! (Windows XP)

Spyware and Viruses attach themselves to your system's
restore files. This is an easy way for them to hide, even
after you reinstall Windows! Right click on 'MY COMPUTER',
then click on 'Properties'. Look for a tab on top called
'System Restore', and click there. Check the box that says
'Turn off system restore on all drives'. Click 'APPLY',
then 'OK'. That's it!

4. Use an Anonymous IP address when surfing the web!

This is a huge step in keeping bugs off your system forever!
Bugs get onto your system and retrieve info about you by
capturing your IP address. Your IP address tells everyone
who you are, where you're located, your system info, what
kind of Windows you use, your browser, etc. An anonymous IP
hides your IP by using an Anonymous address and makes you
invisible to everyone, including Spyware and Ads! Here is an
address to a good proxy list:

http://www.stopspywareforfree.com/proxylist.html

Please follow these instructions carefully for Microsoft
Internet Explorer:

a) Scroll down on the page from the above link. On the
list, look at the numbers listed under IP:Port Host name.
Make sure the uptime on the right is at least 97 to 99 %.

b) Go to the Control Panel in Windows.

c) Open up ' Internet Options'.

d) Click on the 'Connections' tab on top.

e) Click on 'LAN Settings'.

f) Put a check-mark where it says PROXY SERVER.

g) In the Address box, copy and paste the IP address listed
on the proxy list (for example: 148.244.150.58 - These are
the numbers shown BEFORE the ':' (semi-colon).

h) Copy and paste the port number into the PORT box (for
example: '80' - the number immediately after the
semi-colon).

i) Click OK, and OK again to close, and close everything.

j) Go ahead and open up your browser and try surfing the
internet to test.

Thats it! You are now surfing invisibly!

For the Firefox browser:

a) Open up the browser and go to 'TOOLS' then 'OPTIONS'.

b) Go to 'GENERAL' on the left, then click the 'Connection
Settings' button below.

c) Choose 'Manual' proxy config from the choices.

d) Check the 'use the same proxy' checkbox.

e) In the 'HTTP Proxy' box, copy and paste the anonymous IP,
and the PORT number in the PORT box (remove the zero first).

f) Click OK, then OK again to close.

g) Now test your browser by surfing the web.

You are now invisible.

**note - if your browsing gets super slow or has a problem,
look for another IP and Port number on the list and try
again. Most of the time the proxies from Mexico work best.
Happy surfing! The free proxy list can be found here:

http://www.stopspywareforfree.com/proxylist.html

5. Download and install the new FIREFOX browser!

Please get rid of Microsoft Internet Explorer on your
system! It is like a pipe that feeds Spyware, Ads and
Viruses onto your system. There are just too many holes
there letting everything in. Mozilla is a fairly new company
that introduced a new breed of browser that blocks popups,
and tries hard to keep these bugs off your system. It has
very few or even NO holes or pipes to let the bugs in! Many
people use it for this very reason, and it has a great look,
better speed, and lets you change the theme of it! Awesome!
Here is the address:

http://www.stopspywareforfree.com/firefox.html

Well that about sums up how to remove spyware in 5 steps.
Follow them CLOSELY and you will see how great it is to surf
virus free Forever! Guaranteed!