Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
Windows Defender is a free antispyware tool that comes with Windows. There are also
many other free and commercial antispyware programs available, such as Spybot Search &
Destroy (
www.safernetworking.org
).
As with antivirus applications, antispyware applications are most effective when their
defi nitions are up to date.
EXERCISE 9.11
Install and Use an Antispyware Application
1.
If you have Windows Vista or Windows 7, open Windows Defender. Or, if you
have some other OS, open its antispyware tool if it has one. If not, download and
install one.
2.
Run a complete check for spyware on your system.
Antispam Software
Spam
refers to unwanted junk email. People send spam to try to sell products because
doing so is economical—it costs almost nothing to send millions of emails, so even if only a
very small percentage of people respond, it's still a money-making proposition. People also
send spam to perpetrate fraud, either by trying to sell useless or non-existent products or by
trying to trick people into visiting phishing websites or sites where a virus or other malware
will be downloaded.
Many email applications include fi lters and other tools to manage spam. Microsoft
Outlook has its own junk-mail fi lter, for example. However, these built-in fi lters often fail
to catch a lot of the spam because their algorithms for differentiating between spam and
legitimate mail aren't sophisticated.
Some antivirus applications include an antispam component, and you can also buy add-
on antispam programs or get them for free. For example,
SpamBayes
, available for free at
http://spambayes.sourceforge.net/
, is an extremely sophisticated email differentiator
that uses a ranking system that evaluates each message on multiple criteria to determine its
spam probability. It's available for Windows, Unix, Linux, and the Mac OS.
EXERCISE 9.12
Install and Use an Antispam Application
1.
Open your current email application, and investigate its antispam features. Look in its
Help system if needed to determine what's there.
2.
Download and install SpamBayes for your OS from
http://spambayes.sourceforge
.net
, or install another antispam application of your choice.
