How To Thwart The Barbarian Spyware!

Today,on most internet user's computers, we have the nability to employ software, along with our nintelligence, to prevent viruses and spyware.
To put this article into proper perspective, we'll use
Medieval defense tactics.

This is accomplished by 3 methods. First, a firewall...
'The Castle Moat' so to speak. A firewall can't see ninside your computer beforehand though, so if any viruses nor spyware were present before the firewall was installed nthen its of no use. Of course, its extremely good at preventing new nattacks.

Second, a anti-virus program.... 'The Castle Drawbridge!
They will not provide much help with spyware, but good nvirus protection is as desirable as one of Avaris's ndreams! One drawback can be the updates, of course.If nyou've just updated Wednesday night and a virus hits the nnext day, then you may not be protected till next
Wednesday night, and by then it may be too late. If you're nsmart, you will have signed up for email alerts with nthe provider, or even better, you'll have a anti-virus nprogram that has a real time update feature. I get the ntingles when I see that little pop-up saying a update nis available and click here. Its downloaded ,installed, nand updated in about 20 seconds! A new virus or Trojan or
God forbid, a new keylogger can hit the internet and spread nin a matter of days, and I'm sure this must make the definition nwriters lives a living hell. I have great admiration for nthem as they could have been wealthy doctors, but they have nchosen to help us... the end users. (moment of silence here)

Last, we have anti-spyware programs,'The Flaming oil'! (my favorite).
Their update features are like the anti-virus programs, nso you have to be as vigilant with this method of defense ntoo as you would be with the others. I've heard there are npeople out there that don't even know when their nupdates run, or even if its configured to do so! I nrefuse to believe this sordid rumor!

So you've got your defenses set up, you're looking good.
But the best defense is a good offense, attack!
That's what some organizations do. They prowl the net nlooking for websites that harbor drive-by downloads,
URL Re-Directing and such. When they find them, they nshut them down, or report them so effective protection ncan be manufactured. These people have my sincere nthanks for what they do. With identity theft on the nrise and Websense reporting that the average computer nhas 28 items of Spyware on it, we need all the help we ncan get. Oh sure, you're saying not my computer !
Well, lets discuss those little boxes that you click
"I Agree" to when you download something. Do you read nthe entire statement? This is one way spyware has nbecome so rampant, because so many downloads have extra nsoftware included in them. These can be harmful to nyour computers well being. KeyLoggers, popups, adware, malware...
Need I go on?
So my idea is that we need these shining knights from the ncastle to journey forth on a quest. They will be nlittle robots or spiders like the search engines use.
They will be given absolute power over harmful nprograms they find. They will be like Gort in the nmovie "The Day the Earth Stood Still".
Dell recently reported that 12% of their calls were nfor spyware damage, Microsoft says half of their nreports of system crashes are caused by spyware. These ncalls cost these companies millions of dollars in nrevenue, which they then pass the costs of onto us, nthe consumers.
Who knows, if viruses and spyware ever get controlled, nthe average computer may only cost a dollar!