IM (Instant Messaging) - man, we thought we had it made in shade when we stumbled over this unique way to communicate! Outside of talking person-to-person on phone, IM was next best thing. Texting talk was endless and cost was nonexistent. Well, those were good old days of yore – you know, those days of glorious innocence.

Just as we were getting oh so comfortable, happily IMing away to each other, then came cloak-and-dagger entrance of treacherous “IM villains”. With their ominous arrival, party abruptly ended. It seemed like overnight, our instant messaging (IM) turned into instant mercenaries, and carnage was strewn all over Internet.

First, it was one by one, then numbers increased and starting growing exponentially, as friends began receiving, and inadvertently sending, viruses, worms, and Trojan horses. Then it went from bad to worse, as report after report surfaced describing grisly results of innocent victims losing their identity because these villains had accessed their personal and confidential information. Truly this was darkest of times for all IMer friends – regardless of IM service we were texting on.

How could this have happened? And more importantly, how can we protect ourselves?

Well, I found out that these villainous hackers had accessed a nifty little program originally designed to benefit us, and twisted it to intercept our conversations traveling across internet. They now have a profitable tool to use that intercepts our data packets and sends us a virus, and duplicates it by sending same ugly bug to everyone on our Buddy List.

Once a hacker has gained access to our Buddy List, they trick our friends into thinking WE, (a trusted source), are sending them a file to download. Then when our friends innocently download file, these villains can then access their computers as well, and use personal and confidential information gathered to line their own pockets. How it affected businesses whose employees used IM to communicate…well, I will just let your imagination take over from there…because hackers let theirs do same.

A lot of us were thinking that we had nothing to worry about because we had anti-virus software on our computers, and that provided protection we needed. Wrong!

Surfing Means More And More To Stay Invisible, To Be Clean From The Inside And To Prevent Installment Of Malicious Software (So Preventing Unwanted Communication From Inside To Outside And From Outside To Inside).

How do you stay invisible while surfing? Of course by installing a firewall. How do I get one free? That's easy point.

You like to stay invisible. But are you? And how do you know? You could do a test from someone out there trying to get in. But who can you trust?

Suppose you are doing a test. Do you obtain objective and reliable information about your PC-vulnerability (for free)?

Now even if you stay invisible, you will visit websites leaving cookies in your PC and you will download software. By doing so you will get spyware, viruses, ...

How can you detect them and delete them? That's also easy point: you have to install an anti-virus program and anti-spyware programs. Research on internet makes it clear that you need 2 anti-spyware programs. Why 2? Because a great fish may be caught by net but a small fish can swim through holes. Using 2 makes holes smaller. What are those 2 free programs you have to download?

Can you prevent spyware to install on your PC? Maybe, maybe not. There is one free software that might prevent it (but not with 100% guarantee).