[WEB4LIB] spyware & adware

[george at library.caltech.edu]

The first step in preventing the accretion of spyware/adware is the
judicious consideration of web browser(s).  With all web browsers, it is
critical that they be kept current and patched, as necessary.

That said, the Mozilla suite of browser applications
<http://mozilla.org> has proven, in my experience, to be very robust at
minimizing/excluding spyware/adware.  This may well be a direct result
of the express intent of the designers to provide cookie and pop-up
control from the outset.  With 3 years of experience in delivering the
goods, Mozilla 1.7.3 <http://www.mozilla.org/products/mozilla1.x/> and
Firefox Preview Release 1.0.1 <http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/>
are about as good as it gets.

I run Spybot Search & Destroy
<http://www.safer-networking.org/en/spybotsd/index.html> from time to
time as a check, but haven't had it find anything in well over a year.
Spybot also provides an inoculation function, which helps to keep the
disk clean.

Mozilla, Firefox, and Spybot are free.  Mozilla and Firefox are
operating system neutral.  Spybot is limited to 8 varieties of Windows.

Your mileage may vary.

George S. Porter
Sherman Fairchild Library of Engineering & Applied Science
California Institute of Technology
Mail Code 1-43, Pasadena, CA 91125-4300
Telephone (626) 395-3409 Fax (626) 431-2681
http://library.caltech.edu
contributor http://stlq.info |
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/fosblog.html