Edited by Emma Thomas, Wednesday, 3 Apr 2019, 14:42
I've just read Part 1: 4.1 Malware.
How does 'spyware' fit into this? I remember at one point - probably around 10-12 years ago - mine and my husband's computer was continually being infested with spyware problems. This BBC WebWise page says that the term 'spyware' refers to programs that contain additional functionality designed to secretly monitor your activities on your computer. Some spyware can be legitimate, but most is malicious. So in the light of section 4.1, I'm guessing that the malicious spyware is malware - so spyware can be malware, though isn't necessarily.
I remember us getting browser hijacks several times - presumably these are malware. Very annoying - your browser continually leads to a particular page irrespective of the page you are trying to reach.
Not meaning to make a plug for a particular browser, but I do seem to recall that when we switched from using Internet Explorer to using Mozilla Firefox, a lot of our malware problems seemed to go. Here's a Wikipedia entry on Firefox's security record, though I haven't read all of it.
Spyware
I've just read Part 1: 4.1 Malware.
How does 'spyware' fit into this? I remember at one point - probably around 10-12 years ago - mine and my husband's computer was continually being infested with spyware problems. This BBC WebWise page says that the term 'spyware' refers to programs that contain additional functionality designed to secretly monitor your activities on your computer. Some spyware can be legitimate, but most is malicious. So in the light of section 4.1, I'm guessing that the malicious spyware is malware - so spyware can be malware, though isn't necessarily.
I remember us getting browser hijacks several times - presumably these are malware. Very annoying - your browser continually leads to a particular page irrespective of the page you are trying to reach.
Not meaning to make a plug for a particular browser, but I do seem to recall that when we switched from using Internet Explorer to using Mozilla Firefox, a lot of our malware problems seemed to go. Here's a Wikipedia entry on Firefox's security record, though I haven't read all of it.