There are several places on the internet that should normally be avoided to skirt the possibility of spyware infection. Porn sites, Peer to Peer file sharing communities like Kazaa and the now shut down Grokster, freeware sites, and casino sites are all notorious for endangering your computer. Peer to Peer file sharing groups are especially bad this way. Grokster.com, besides being shut down for copyright violations, was notorious for infecting their members’ computers with adware, specifically .Broadcap.

This Trojan is a severe risk to your computer. Once infected, it searches your Temporary Files folder for information on your browsing habits. Usually, adware programs seem to be limited to finding your browsing history, bookmarks, and tracking cookies, but there is always the potential for them to find more. This might include your credit card, bank account and PayPal information if you’ve used these services online. Unless you have top of the line spyware protection, you should always clear your browser’s cache after making transactions this way.

After it gathers this information, this program sends it to a remote server. Your information is then stored on a database, and advertisements are downloaded to your computer. These ads appear in pop ups, banners, popunders, and sometimes infected weblinks. A particular feature of broadcap is that the advertisements you get are in full screen video form. As you can imagine, these files are way larger than if you just had a picture or link pop up. This ultimately makes this parasite a particular burden on your computer’s performance. Not only does it use your computer’s memory to run these videos without your permission, it uses up the bandwidth of your internet connection to send out your information to a complete stranger, and download files that you don’t want on your computer. Since how much bandwidth you have depends on how much memory your computer has, it costs you even more memory to have this albatross around your neck. Another particular feature is that it may pretend to be a Microsoft update service, and pop up a request to update the Microsoft .Net framework. I wouldn’t trust it. It would be too easy to get more spyware this way.

Consequently, your computer will start running slower, since it has to process all of this activity. Even worse, many of your programs may wind up having errors and have to quit. This is especially true of your internet browsers!  Let’s assume that you don’t see any advertisements, but your Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox takes forever to load and sometimes crashes on you. It’s a good time to be suspicious, and make a spyware scan.

Even though Grokster is history, .Broadcap isn’t. As always, I recommend that you be armed with the best spyware removal program out there. My SpyZooka is the state of the art antispyware on the net. We have a bot scanning the internet for updates 24/7, we have protection from future infections, and our scans take 10-15 minutes, unlike most programs that take at least an hour! Best of all, we have the 100% removal guarantee that no one else can offer. Try it and see!