[joeandkaren]

i have been reading about spyware and programs to eliminate it. however, i only see applications for PC platforms, not Mac. is this because there is not a spyware issue for Mac platforms or is there a Mac specific program that i need to find.
thanx.

[gyroscope4]

your first guess was right. there's not an issue. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[joeandkaren]

that is great. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[ThEMaCmAn]

I know that most of the spyware from the windows world dosn't function on the mac, but there is something I don't get. "Web bugs" the small invisible GIF's some pages use to track you on the internet....they are GIF's, which work on ANY platform. Wouldn't they work on macs? Same goes for tracking cookies..they are cookies, which are also cross platform. So, are macs really that spyware" proof?" /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif Just wondering.....

[d00d]

If you want to count that as spyware, then any platform that has a web browser is susceptible to "spyware". However, loading a GIF (it could be any picture file, jpg, png, etc.) only indicates that you've viewed the page (generally an email) and will reveal your IP address as that is always given in a web request. I wouldn't call that spyware though. It doesn't really reveal any information about you other than your IP and whether your email is active. You might as well consider web surfing spyware because anyone can go through their http server logs for the IPs of users. As for cookies, it can identify you to any site owned by the original cookie giver. If webmaster x has sites y and z but not w, he can track when you visit y and z, but not w because he doesn't control that site. He could just as easily look at his logs again and check to see if your IP shows up and when. It'll reveal just about the same amount of information. The only advantage the cookie has is that it's persistent between IP address changes. Clearing your cookies, restricting cookies to sites that you navigate to, or using a browser that asks everytime a website tries to give a cookie will help prevent this. The only information revealed through this technique is browsing habits, but is restricted to a few certain pages and not the general net.
If you want to consider that spyware, you can, but it's nothing like the spyware that plagues Windows PCs, not even close.