Test Your PC For Parasites

There are a lot of dodgy programs out there that may get installed on users computers without their knowledge or consent. Many applications described as "freeware" come infested with parasitic software that latches onto the web browser, provides little or no benefit to the user and can:

plague the user with unwanted advertising (adware);

add advertising links to web pages, for which the author does not get paid, and hijack affiliate-program payments (scumware);

watch everything the user does on-line and send information back to marketing companies (spyware);

leave security holes whereby arbitrary code can be executed on the users computer (typically this is used to allow the program to update itself);

if the software does not make proper use of cryptographic authentication, it could be possible for hackers as well as the responsible company to execute arbitrary code;

degrade system performance and cause errors thanks to being badly-written.
So be careful what you install - you may be getting more than you bargained for!
http://www.doxdesk.com/parasite/