My PC had been running slowly for a long time and was really beginning to frustrate me, At first I thought there must be some virus on it giving me some grief so I did the scans with more than one program just to make sure but it came up clean, I deleted all unwanted software and regularly ran the defragment program on my computer and it made very little long term difference so I thought it was just getting old and it was time for a new computer.

One time while I was surfing the Internet I stumbled across a term that I hadn't heard before in regards to the computing industry and that was spyware. Due to my ignorance the first thought that came to mind is an image of agent 007 and it got my curiosity.

Obviously it had nothing to do with my initial thoughts but what I did find out was the answer to what had been causing havoc and causing my computer to run slow.

Spyware over time can cause your computer to run slowly and even be somewhat unstable and I thought that was bad enough but that wasn't the worst of it, spyware is exactly what it says it is, It is tiny programs put on your computer without you knowing about it and they are spying on your activities and sending that information back to whoever owns the program and that information will be use for commercial use exploiting not only you but others.

Personally I think using spyware is an unethical way of obtaining information since the individuals have not given any permission for that information to be made somewhat public.

We all pretty much like to find out information about other people in a harmless kind of way, especially if we could possibly use it against them at some later date such as at their engagement party or wedding speeches, but it is all for a joke, gossip is interesting, isn't it?

Where is the line between harmless and exploitation, this is really a personal opinion to each of us but since finding about spyware and what it can do I defend myself from the invasion.

Anti spyware programs have made it so much easier to get rid of these invaders because they are programmed to know exactly where to look for them because to us amateurs we would never find them, and that is how they were designed, so that we would never find them.

This practice is actually information theft, and may be unethical but at the moment it is not illegal because so far there is no way to regulate this kind of practice. If someone stole your car, most likely you would be pretty upset about it, do we tolerate people stealing information about us. To a certain degree we do but it is only because we don't understand the implications of the theft.

I'm sure that when adware first came about it was innocent enough with the software programmers wanting people to experience the program and then make a donation or at least support them by viewing the sponsors advertisements, but maybe they weren't getting enough and a better plan came along. Lets actually find out what they want by spying. I'm sure they could have just asked like the surveyors do but that requires manpower and a computer can do the same job.

Spyware places advertisements on your computer that pop up occasionally that are relevant to the things that you are interested in because it knows what your interests are now due to the information it has gathered about you through your internet browsing habits, the type of sites you visit, and the words you type in your searches.

So how do we remove spyware nuisances, It becomes a war between software programs since spyware is very hard to find for most people the only real way to get rid of it once it is on your computer is to get another software program that knows how to recognize spyware and remove it, fortunately this software is easily found and some of them will allow a free scan of your computer before you purchase.

http://www.advantage-power.com/computing/how-to-remove-spyware.html