We have done it before and we keep doing it, downloading free software that contains spyware, malware, and deceptive adware. This type of software tracks your online browsing and feeds that information back to shady marketing groups. It also slows down you computer and eventually you're forced to spend hours trying to clean up your computer.
You end up spending money on software that should keep your computer safe from this type malicious software, but chances are it won't keep you 100% safe. The number of websites going up each day that are trying to trick you into downloading spyware grows at an alarming rate. So what else can you do to stay ahead?
An organization that calls itself StopBadware.org is a "Neighbourhood Watch" campaign aimed at fighting malicious software. You and everyone else in the world that has been infected with malicious software can report websites that are spreading malware to StopBadware.org by submitting your malware story.
Everyone can benefit from this greatly, because before downloading anything you can go to StopBadware.org and run a URL search to see if the website you're downloading software from has been reported by anyone in the world for spreading malicious software. This will not keep you 100% safe, but it's another prevention step you can take to keep your computer spyware free.
So who is behind this organization?
This initiative is led by
- Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet & Society
- Oxford University's Oxford Internet Institute
Also several prominent tech companies are supporting this initiative
- Google, doesn't need an introduction
- Lenovo
- Sun Microsystems
- Consumer Reports WebWatch
If you use Google as your search engine, they are now presenting people with a warning before they visit websites that have been reported to StopBadware.org
No comments:
Post a Comment