Adware and Spyware are programs that hide in your computer and collect information about what sites you’re viewing, usually to display unwanted and unnecessary advertising.

Spyware and Adware creators often trick unsuspecting users to install their software – this may include attaching it to legitimate links on web sites, including when you download freeware or shareware software or when you open a funny email attachment.

It’s usually not damaging enough for anti-virus software to find them and to pick them up, and because you’re often tricked into downloading it, it can sneak past your firewall.

Spyware and Adware are usually more damaging, they are also an inconvenience – while they can cause unnecessary usage on your account, the most annoying elements are the unwanted advertising and how it slows down your computer, and sometimes causes the internet connections to fail or sometimes the Internet Explorer browser fails to display the page you requested.

I would recommend you to run regular Adware and Spyware checks to make sure you’re getting the optimum internet experience.

There are several free and paid-for programs available which detect and remove adware and spyware. But most of these so-called spyware cleaners cause more damage to your PC than good.

The following are one of the best Spyware scanning softwares that I have come across:

Privacy Guardian and Spyware Doctor both from PC Tools www.pctools.com. These two softwares are worth the money.

Please note: Spyware Doctor from PC Tools listed above can only be used on computers that are equipped with more than 2gb of RAM. As I found it to slow down computers as it utilises quite a lot of RAM (Memory) whilst its running on your computer.

Tip: One trick I found in using Spyware Doctor in low memory computers, ie: computers that have under 1gb of RAM..is to update the software, then run the scan to pick up any Adaware, Spywares and once cleaned just shutdown the Spyware Doctor until you want to run the next clean.