Spyware comes in many forms. Typically, spyware gets installed on your computer without you realizing it. It may be part of a program that you installed or it may install itself as you access various web sites. You can set detect and remove unwanted spyware. However, in some cases, the program that installed the spyware may not work without the spyware installed. You should test your programs before deleting spyware permanently.

Spyware/Adware/Malware infects 9 out of 10 Internet connected PCs and has eclipsed viruses as the #1 threat to online privacy. The consequences of unidentified Spyware/Adware/Malware can include identity theft, computer corruption and bombardment from pop-up ads.

Spyware/Adware/Malware can easily bypass anti-virus protection by piggybacking on legitimate downloads to stealthily install on your system without your knowledge.

Spyware/Adware/Malware programs are deeply rooted applications that intertwine with core system functions to make manual removal without system disruption nearly impossible for most PC users.

"Parasite" is a shorthand term for unsolicited commercial software - that is, a program that gets installed on your computer which you never asked for, and which does something you probably do not want it to, for someone else`s profit.

The parasite problem has grown enormously recently, and many millions of computers are affected. Unsolicited commercial software can typically:

• Plague you with unwanted advertising adware
• Watch everything you do on-line and send information back to marketing companies spyware
• Add advertising links to web pages, for which the author does not get paid, and redirect the payments from affiliate-fee schemes to the makers of the software (such software is sometimes called "scumware")
• Set browser home page and search settings to point to the makers` sites (generally loaded with advertising), and prevent you changing it back (homepage hijackers) or (browser hijacking)
• Make your modem (analogue or ISDN) call premium-rate phone numbers ("dialers")
• Leave security holes allowing the makers of the software (or, in particularly bad cases, anyone at all) to download and run software on your machine;
  Degrade system performance and cause errors thanks to being badly-written
• Provide no uninstall feature, and put its code in unexpected and hidden places to make it difficult to remove and in some cases impossible to remove.