Anti spyware Software

spyware is the Internet word for Advertising Supported software (Adware). It is a way for people to make money from a product, other than by selling it to the users. There are several large media companies that offer them to place banner ads in their products in exchange for a portion of the revenue from banner sales. Not all of them are harmful but the average person will no until they do a spyware scan.

Advertising companies also install additional tracking software on your computer, the “bad” companies use your Internet connection and reports statistical data to their headquarters. The fact is they get on and stay on your computer and send information about you and your surfing habits to another location.

Even though the name may indicate so, Spyware is not illegal in any way. However there are certain things that a privacy user may object to and therefore prefer not to use the product. This usually involves the tracking and sending of data and statistics via a server installed on the user's computer and the use of your Internet connection in the background.
There are many computer surveillance tools that allow a user to monitor all kinds of activity on a computer, from keystroke capture, snapshots, email logging, chat logging and just about everything else. These tools are often designed for parents, businesses and similar environments, but can be easily abused if they are installed on your computer without your knowing or permission .

Advertising spyware monitors the surfing and/or searching habits of a person using the machine on which it is installed. That information is transmitted over the internet, usually to the company responsible for creating the software. The information is stored in a database, usually for marketing purposes. Information from this database might be sold to third parties. The software usually will display advertisements thought to be relevant to the interests of the person(s) using the infected computer.
Spyware can be installed in many ways. The most common method is what iss known as bundling. That is when the spyware company pays a software publisher to include the spyware in their products. Another common method is to exploit security flaws in popular web browsers to install the software.
A unique tracking number is assigned to each installation of the spyware. This tracking number, as well as information about how the infected computer is being used, is transmitted back to the company responsible for creating the spyware. This allows that company to maintain a database on the activities of the users whose computers are infected with spyware.
Advertisements may be displayed which are closely related to the topics which the users are reading or for what they are searching for. These advertisements most commonly appear as pop-up windows or banner ads that are embedded into an unrelated program.

Some of the better and more popular Anti-Spyware

Ad-Aware 2008

http://lavasoft.com/products/ad_aware_fr...

SpyBot Search & Destroy

http://www.spybot.com/index2.html

CCleaner (cleans out caches)

http://www.ccleaner.com

Some of the paid anti virus & spyware removal tools

Norton

http://www.symantec.com/

McAFee

http://www.mcafee.com/

Pc-Cillan

http://www.antivirus.com/