Hello all,
There is no spyware on mumsnet. Some of the third-party advertising we carry may try to create a tracking cookie, but that's all.
Just to clarify, a tracking cookie in theory lets an advertiser or advertising agent "follow" you from site to site, ie they know that a particular computer looked at xyza123.com and then looked at bytyxm.com. This lets them build lists of your browsing habits and use them to target advertising.
The latest versions of Internet Explorer (6+) and Firefox block these by default - ie if you have the default security settings - while allowing first party cookies. "First-party cookies" which mumsnet uses, are cookies that only ever go back to the site you are on. We use them at musment so that you don't have to enter your nickname and password each time you post a message, so that you can "log on" and so on. Without them, there is absolutely no way for us to know that two requests for pages came from the same computer. If you block cookies completely, lots of sites just won't work, or will be limited in what they can do.
"Spyware" or "adware" is usually used to mean software like at the worst keystroke recorders that are downloaded to your computer and then report back on your habits to some third party, and could potentially report your banking passwords etc. Other types of this stuff, also known as "malware", will do things like throw up pop-up adverts, even when you are not using a browser, and so on.
The confusion comes in because some of the malware removal tools don't make a huge distinction between the different types of pest they deal with, and will just report "30 objects found" or something similar. Without trawling through logs, it isn't always easy to tell if they are genuine nasties or just cookies.
So you might think you are getting constantly "infected" when in reality you have nothing to worry about.
Regards,
Tech