Program question

[davemuhs]

What is a good freeware program that can detect and remove spyware off an apple computer? I am running Mac OS 10.3.

[tgpo]

There's such a thing as spyware on the mac?

[dotpuppy]

I don't think I've heard of any spyware either.

But on a mac, it's pretty easy to see what's running at startup, and any good spyware would have to boot at startup.


Just look in:

/System/Library/StartupItems/
/Library/StartupItems/

and double-check to see if there's a

/Users/yourusername/Library/StartupItems/

If the second two folders even exists they should be empty. Make sure you recognize anything there and I think you'll be all set.

If you have any questions about any item in the /System/ startup folder, just post it here and I'm sure someone can verify whether or not it's supposed to be there.

[thoughton]

While I'd agree with the above posters that there are probably very few cases of genuinely nasty spyware on OS X, there is plenty of software that 'phones home' for a variety of reasons.

If you value your privacy and are worried about spyware I'd highly recommend Little Snitch.