The previous article in this series outlined what spyware and adware is. In this article I will discuss symptoms of spyware and adware so that you can determine if you have been infected.

How do I know if I have Spyware or Adware?

As previously discussed, there are plenty of spyware and adware bugs out there that are harmless. If that is the case, you wouldn’t really know whether or not you have it. It is always wise still to scan and search your computer with tools to determine if even the most harmless bug exists. If you have a malicious spyware or adware problem, you’ll definitely know.

Listed below are some signs that your computer may be running one or more deceptive adware or spyware software programs.

1. Your homepage changes to an unknown site or continues to change back to a particular site even if you change the homepage settings in your browser. Many deceptive spyware and adware software programs try to force you to use specific sites so the site owners can earn advertising revenue.

2. When you click on the Search button in Internet Explorer, you are taken to a page that you’ve never seen before.

3. Your browser window starts displaying unwanted toolbars or search forms that are difficult to remove or keep coming back.

4. You receive an increase in pop-up windows, even while browsing to pages that have not had pop-up windows before. Under normal conditions, pop-up windows come from the Web pages you visit. Adware is able to create its own pop-up advertisements independent of the page that you are viewing.

5. Your computer seems much slower than it used to be. Deceptive software steals your computer’s resources such as computing power and bandwidth in order to deliver advertisements or track activities.

Okay, so now if you know you have some sort of spyware or adware bug on your computer. In the next article, I will outline how to control the issue at hand and terminate these annoyances.

The author, Jordan Peterson, of Custom Trading Computers, Inc. is a well-known expert in custom built high performance computers, which must be specifically designed for currency traders. Such computer systems can handle heavy volume trading periods with complete success and without any danger of locking up.

Our live tests on the Strategy Runner forex trading platform have been prolonged. The problem is that Strategy Runner employs a very cumbersome way to enter the market. When we started our tests, we didn’t think this would matter, but it does - especially when trading right after economic reports and news releases. Forex scalping becomes extremely difficult with the way the platform is currently set up.

In the next week or so, Strategy Runner agreed to add two additional buttons to their platform that will hopefully allow Nigel to enter and exit the market faster. This won’t solve all the problems (since the platform needs more modifications to meet our needs), but it should increase the quality of execution to an acceptable level. If this happens, we will inform clients at FXLQ to transfer their accounts to ODL.

MT4 Currenex Tests

On Friday we received the login information for the new MT4-Currenex project we have been waiting for. The brokerage firm involved still has to resolve the latency (delay) issues present, but even having something to test is progress. We will continue to monitor the platform and pricing. When everything is ready for live testing and we get to run some successful live trades, this might become another option for our forex traders.

New Forex Trading System

We will be testing a new, fully-automated forex day trading system next week that works directly with Currenex. It does not need MT4 or any other platform to run and the server where the program is installed is located in New York. Since all Currenex execution servers are also in New York, this should reduce execution delays significantly. I will let you know what the live results are once we have them. This might be another option for some of you to diversify.

New Forex Scalper

Next week we’ll also be running some live tests with an additional forex scalper. If these manual tests are successful, we’ll also start testing a fully automated version of the scalper’s strategy.

I know we don’t have a solution for our FXLQ clients yet, but I know that we soon will - the [near] future looks very promising.