I came across a letter on the Spybot website that tells an interesting story. Apparently there is a trojan roaming the web and installing some fairly harmless malware. The malware causes a little dancing girl to pop-up on your desktop.

The interesting part here is that Spybot properly identifies the dancing girl as malware and suggests it for removal, explaining in the description that it is distributed by the trojan. The malware company sent a letter demanding that Spybot no longer detect their software and that they remove mention of the trojan in the description.

That is stupid. Why should a program designed to remove spyware and malware stop detecting something because the creators don’t like it? If you don’t want to be associated with a trojan, go track down the person/people who wrote it, not the people trying to remove it for users at no cost.

The article and the malware company’s stupid demands reminded me that I don’t think I have ever suggested Spybot for Windows users. If you aren’t running this great program, go download it now. It will scan for spyware just like an antivirus scans for viruses. Then you can have it automatically fix everything for you.

Spybot is not the only solution for spyware removal, but they are really darn good, and free!

Other software solutions for Win users:

Firefox – Less vulnerabilities than IE, and you can customize it

Thunderbird – Free email program that is highly customizeable

AVG Antivirus – Free antivirus for home use

ZoneAlarm – Free quality firewall for home use

Spybot S&D – Excellent spyware detection and removal

All of these programs are free, but some will ask for donations or try to sell you additional products. Just say no to the additional products and please donate to Spybot.

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