1) Know your friends: It's a pain, but
read all those license agreements and opt-in
checkboxes when you register with a website, install
a new application, or click on a seemingly benign
pop-up ad.
2) Know your enemies: Learn which
innocuous-seeming applications like Xupiter and
WebMonkey will compromise your privacy. Check out
this list of common
Spyware in the wild, and this one detailing
common ways that spyware installs
itself on your system.
3) Purge moles: Use spyware detection and
removal applications to sweep for traitors in your
midst (and on your hard drive).
4) Keep your inoculations up to date: Keep
your antivirus software running and update it
regularly to avoid Trojan horses, viruses and
spyware.
5) Monitor communications: Run hardware
and software firewalls, and configure them to detect
outgoing traffic; research any requests that look
suspicious.
6) Be paranoid: Make sure your IE security
settings for the Internet Zone are set to at least
medium. Read the text of any dialog box asking to
install an ActiveX control; if you didn't request
it, don't allow it.
7) Irradiate your mail: Defeat e-mail Web
bugs by blocking cookies from known advertising
sites. You can also block all images from
advertising sites by using PC Magazine's utility CookieCop
2. In Outlook, purify correspondence by
disabling script viewing and active content under
Tools | Options | Security | Secure Content.
8) Practice information security: When you
register software or buy anything online, give only
the information that's required. Don't even register
at all unless you get something useful in
return—for example, if tech support is contingent
on registration.
