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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[edit] March 27, 2007

Adobe Photoshop, or simply Photoshop, is a graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Systems. It is the current market leader for commercial bitmap and image manipulation, and, aside from Adobe Acrobat, is the best-known piece of software produced by Adobe Systems. It is considered the industry standard in most jobs related to the use of visual elements.^{[citation needed]}

Photoshop is available for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Mac OS; versions up to Photoshop 9.0 can also be used with other operating systems such as Linux using software such as CrossOver. Past versions of the program were ported to the SGI IRIX and Sun Solaris platforms, but official support for this port was dropped after version 3.

[edit] November 2006

[edit] November 23

Spyware is computer software that collects personal information about a user without their informed consent. The term, coined in 1995 but not widely used for another five years, is often used interchangeably with adware and malware(software designed to infiltrate and damage a computer.

Personal information is secretly recorded with a variety of techniques, including logging keystrokes, recording Internet web browsing history, and scanning documents on the computer's hard disk. Purposes range from overtly criminal (theft of passwords and financial details) to the merely annoying (recording Internet search history for targeted advertising, while consuming computer resources). Spyware collects many different types of information. Some variants attempt to track the websites a user visits and then send this information to an advertising agency. More malicious variants attempt to intercept passwords or credit card numbers as a user enters them into a web form or other application.

The spread of spyware has led to the development of an entire anti-spyware industry. Its products remove or disable existing spyware on the computers they are installed on and prevent its installation. However, a number of companies have incorporated forms of spyware into their products. These programs are not considered malware, but are still spyware as they watch and observe with for advertising purposes. It is somewhat arguable whether such 'legitimate' uses of adware/spyware are malware since the user often has no knowledge of these 'legitimate' programs being installed on his/her computer and is generally unaware that these programs are infringing on his/her privacy. In any case, these programs still use the resources of the host computer without permission.