I mentioned computer viruses earlier. We all have to have a good anti-virus program installed to scan for them (I use Norton) but we also want to keep an eye out for Spyware. These are programs or little files that websites put on our computers in order to find out things about those who surf their sites. Usually, the info they collect is pretty harmless but (1) it's none of their business anyway, (2) sometimes it isn't harmless and (3) Spyware on your computer can reduce its performance level. So we want to keep our computers free of this stuff. The three leading programs that detect and delete Spyware seem to be…
- Ad-Aware – They have a free version and a pay version, and the former will probably be enough for most folks.
- Spybot Search & Destroy – Free but they request donations.
- Pest Patrol – You can download a copy for free that will scan your system and find Spyware. But you have to pay $40 for the version that will remove the intruders it locates.
Now, you're probably wondering which of these you should use. If you want to be truly Spyware-free, the answer is "all of them." I update and run all three about once a week and each finds something the others didn't. In some cases, that's because one program finds out about a given piece of Spyware before the others do. In other cases, the folks behind these detectors simply disagree on how much info a cookie has to gather before they declare it Spyware. I recommend you try at least one…and make sure you update it before each use.