When you are online and surfing or downloading software you end up installing programs you were never aware of or never wanted in the first place. These programs are installed on your computer without your knowledge and permission. Sometimes clicking on pop up advertisement results in unwanted software getting installed on your PC. Sometimes these programs get installed even if you exit out from windows. Even if you want to uninstall these programs, you are not able to. These kinds of programs are termed as spyware.

Allowing web based application to integrate into one's system may also install spyware on the computer.

Spyware can be harmful as it collects data about you, in its database without informing you about it's purpose. Many a times, a spyware changes your system settings, by altering your browser's default homepage and prevents you from resetting it to the one you want, and directing you to the website you never wanted to surf in the first place. Spyware gets activated on system as soon as system is started. It steals cpu cycles, memory resources and bandwidth slowing down your computer. This causes system instability and applications running in the background may lead to system crash. The wastage in useful working time, also, can not be overlooked, with the users having to monitor system and getting rid of the damaging files.

Bugs in the older computer programs may be exploited by hackers and malicious program writers. Hence it is also important, to upgrade the software on the computer regularly. Use of antivirus software and regular automatic updates on windows system may help to protect PCs from getting infected.

One may minimize risk of spyware, by using other operating systems like Linux or Macintosh, as these operating systems are not prone to spyware attacks. But the browsers on these operating system may get targeted by spyware by use of browser cookies.

By disabling ActiveX on internet explorer, spyware attack risk can be avoided to some extent.

As some spyware exploit the vulnerabilities of internet explorer, one may use less vulnerable browsers like opera or mozilla firefox.

There are many anti spyware tools available in the market . Some of these tools are also available, free of cost. For AT&T broadband users a toolkit known as AT&T Internet Security Suite is available. But for most other users of internet, I highly recommend use of Panda Antivirus 2008.

Panda Antivirus 2008 is very effective as it comes with following built in features:-

1. AntiSpyware

2. Antivirus

3. AntiSpam

4. Tech Support 24 hours a day 365 days a year

5. Protection against dangerous websites

6. Indepth online scanning

7. Automatic updates.

8. AntiPhishing:- Protects against online fraud.

9. Antirootkit

It really is a great software suite which helps in protecting the computer from dangerous and malicious programs. Regular use of this security suite helps you to keep your computer free of spyware and viruses.

In this short article I explained about what spyware is, how your computer gets attacked by spyware, the precautions you can take to avoid spyware attacks and the spyware remover tools. Knowing the enemy, you are now better equipped to deal with spyware menace.