If you are looking for a way to spruce up your personal web page, your email, or to jazz up your Myspace page, you might want to look into getting some lively backgrounds. These can be great fun, but can also be a pain. If you don't know much about html, you may have a hard time getting them added to your site, and if you aren't careful about where you get your backgrounds, you may end up with some nasty surprises.

There are many places in the Internet where you can download animated backgrounds. You just have to be careful when you do so. There are many places that offer smilies, fonts, and animated backgrounds, but they are also offering you something else. When downloading from these sites, you are likely to get spyware and malware as part of the package.

It has happened to me, and I am now very careful about where I get things online. I wasn't after animated backgrounds, but I wanted some smilies for my email. I went to Smilie Central and downloaded their program. It was a stupid mistake on my part, but a lot of other people make the same mistake. My computer was instantly infected with spyware. It almost crippled my computer. It took me quite a while to figure out what was going on, and to clean up my system.

Many sites do this because they know you are looking for a few animated backgrounds, or searching for a neat mouse pointer for your computer. They give you the stuff for free, but then sell your information to spam emailers and the like. They install spyware on your computer that tells them where you go on the Internet and what you're browsing habits are. This information is valuable to a lot of people. They may also install malware, which can do damage to your machine, or pick up your passwords or credit card information.

If you decide to download animated backgrounds, have your spyware and antivirus running as you download. They will, in most cases, pick up on any extra stuff trying to come through your computer.

After you have installed or downloaded, run your spyware program to make sure everything was caught. Some downloadable programs won't run if you remove the spyware, but the choice is up to you. Do you want the free animated backgrounds, or do you want your privacy?