Using Google as a research aide for her thesis on money laundering was a common occurrence of one individual law school student. During the course of writing her paper, this method was valuable to her. A couple months after beginning her project, the student became distressed to discover that her trusty search engine began leading her to a web page unrelated to money laundering. Finally Fast is selling you the exact same product as the other companies, but at a much higher price and all broken up into different products by just separating what each program finds.

Originally she considered that the problem could be with the search engine or in her internet, but the frequency and repeated nature of the problem made her think that someone had bugged her computer. No one likes to be bugged, but at least when the offenders are human, we can fend them off. Adware and spyware are computer bugs that, as they demonstrated by their persistence in the law school student’s computer that they infected, are not as easily gotten rid of. The law school student was definitely not an advanced student of technology, as she typically only used her computer for school related purposes of research and writing.

The cause of the student’s problems, like many of her peers, can be found through spyware and adware. Despite the fact that it did not become a popular part of the English language until 2000, the origin of the word ’spyware’ dates back to 1995. This refers to any software program or script which allows admission to the computer owner’s personal information.

Not only are the user’s keystrokes and browsing history examined in this type of computer intrusion, so too is the user’s hard drive. Though it sounds like something out of a James Bond movie, anyone can be a victim of spyware. Monitoring others’ online use is an act that takes advantage of others and calling the people affected by this invasion of privacy victims is only logical. Admittedly spyware has beneficial uses such as allowing the tracking of criminals, but those potential uses are frequently ignored as crooks use the program for their own criminal activities, such as stealing credit card information. Including good anti-spyware programs on your computer system only makes sense.

As protection measures, ordinary people can block spyware and similar programs, such as adware and malware. The internet can be a helpful tool in this battle by providing many spyware and adware blocker programs. These programs both remove and disable existing bugs and help prevent the future installation of similar malicious software. One such problem caused by these software programs is the fact that they cause the computer itself to slow down. Unfortunately for many computer owners, spyware programs can and do hide on their systems, causing havoc while being undetectable as the root of the problem. It is always best to have a ready blocker to prevent any infection occurring in the first place.