Popups, Privacy, and Protection

Hey Kids! How goes it? Well, I have decided to take this blog to another level again, but I mean it this time. Movies, Technology and Music. Thats what I know so thats what I am going to talk about. I must confess that most of today's find was not mine - it was D's but nevertheless I am going to share it with you.

Download Ad-Aware, a handy dandy free program that seeks and destroys all Spyware on your computer. What is spyware? Basically its a tiny program that communicates with a server - telling them where you go and what you do while your there - on the internet. For a full summary click here - A long article but interesting - be sure to click "text continues."

And on to the next little goodie. How many people hate popups? I hate them. And I hate the little cookies that websites send to my computer to track me too. I think that is lame. So, what did I do? I installed a little program that D hooked me up with called Gaurd IE which is a beautiful little program in itself. I know, you want popups from some sites - and Guard IE gives you the power to choose where your popups come from. It also keeps track of your cookies, and lets you know which ones are 'unwanted'. Simple to use with only one drawback - you can't disable it. Some sites don't have typical naming schemes and therefore the 'allow popups from _____.com' doesn't work - but don't worry, a quick double click will reopen it - sucks for Jeopardy though - you miss your daily double!

And my final issue for the day. I know almost everyone in the world has a Hotmail account (unless it has been closed because it was 32 days ago that you checked it) and we all are quite loyal to Hotmail. Its funny that we will pump our dollars into Microsoft, but we will not trust them. And we shouldn't. Why you ask?

Hotmail is selling your email address to anyone who will pay for it. Even worse, they are selling the information that is in your account. Sure, you have 2-4 bogus accounts with hotmail for whatever reason - but do you have your information really on that account? In order to fix this probelm all you need to do is follow these little directions:

1. Log into Hotmail
2. Go to the OPTIONS page
3. Go to personal profile
4. Unclick "Share my email" (bottom of the page)

Interesting how they hid it in our profiles isn't it?

So there you go - an update for the masses. Protect yourself people! Get Norton Internet Security to keep baad hackers out of your computer, Guard IE to protect your cookies and spyware from websites, and get ad-aware. It has its way of getting you - the main computer at my house had 64 programs. Don't let people watch you - its none of their business!

(And for the record, Kazaa contains spyware, and will not allow you to delete it, or Kazaa wont run, this my friends is why I use WinMX and Audiogalaxy)