I’ll let all the readers in on a little tech journalism secret. Media outlets run stories about viruses and spyware solely to scare the crap out of you. Now, some of the time these warnings are truly legitimate, and other times it’s sensationalism meant to drive traffic to the media outlet’s website, and to pump up an anti-virus or anti-spyware vendor’s lagging sales.
Well, it looks like the clowns at Business Week are scaring us with a story that MySpace is now responsible for the upsurge in spyware. The article claims that spyware vendors are creating profiles that automatically download and install spyware to your machine just by visiting their page. That is true, but it’s also true for any page on the Internet.
It’s purely a sensational story to pump up Webroot, an anti-spyware vendor who provided the alarming information.
Here’s my huge tip regarding spyware that many people don’t know. You need to run multiple anti-spyware programs to get rid of all your spyware. While you can get by with one anti-virus program, you can’t with just a single anti-spyware program.
I suggest you start with the following: Lavasoft’s Ad-Aware, Spybot Search and Destroy, and believe it or not, Webroot’s Spy Sweeper.
