Topicks And The Hacker Potential

I'm so sick of adware, especially ToPicks. I feel like my computer is my property. For someone to put their information on the hard drive in my computer so they can send me advertisements when I am trying to read the news or check e-mail is just wrong. I feel it is no different than someone walking into my house while I am reading the newspaper to hand me a flyer for some sale at the mall.

ToPicks is actually a program that adds a toolbar to Internet Explorer that can be very difficult to get rid of. All the toolbar does is send you advertising, it does not even provide some kind of worthwhile feature. Why would anyone want a ToPicks toolbar to just get junk advertising? I know why the company designed ToPicks, so they could sell advertising on your computer, as well as millions of other computers.

Upon further research I noticed that there is the potential for someone to exploit ToPicks. Because ToPicks not only silently downloads advertisements to your computer it can also execute unsigned code. Meaning that if a potential hacker can trick your computer into believing ToPicks is downloading code from its own server, when in fact it is downloading code from the hacker, then the hacker can control your computer.

As of yet I have not heard of anyone doing this with ToPicks, but I know that it can be done this and other types of adware. It is only a matter of time before someone starts bragging about using ToPicks to take over someone's computer.

If you don't already have a spyware program that gives you 100% protection, then you better start looking for one. Some people reading this might say that they can just remove adware from their computer manually, but most programs like this have been bundled with other programs. In a lot of cases you can remove it, but as soon as you open the program that the spyware or adware was bundled with, it is reinstalled. Remember, whatever you do, find a spyware removal program that is guaranteed 100% to remove all this kind of junk.

About the Author:

Carl runs a site devoted to helping you rid your computer from all sorts of spyware and malware at http://www.spyzooka.com/