Beware of Malware and Spyware

Malware is software designed to infiltrate or damage a computer system without the owner's informed consent. The expression is a general term used by computer professionals to mean a variety of forms of hostile, intrusive, or annoying software or program code.
Many computer users are unfamiliar with the term, and often use "computer virus" for all types of malware, including true viruses.
Software is considered malware based on the perceived intent of the creator rather than any particular features. Malware includes computer viruses, worms, trojan horses, most rootkits, spyware, dishonest adware, crimeware and other malicious and unwanted software. In law, malware is sometimes known as a computer contaminant, for instance in the legal codes of several American states, including California and West Virginia.

Malware is not the same as defective software, that is, software which has a legitimate purpose but contains harmful bugs.

Preliminary results from Symantec suggested that "the release rate of malicious code and other unwanted programs may be exceeding that of legitimate software applications." According to F-Secure, "As much malware was produced in the last year as in the previous 20 years altogether." Malware's most common pathway from criminals to users is through the Internet, by email and the World Wide Web.

Spyware is computer software that is installed surreptitiously on a personal computer to intercept or take partial control over the user's interaction with the computer, without the user's informed consent.

While the term spyware suggests software that secretly monitors the user's behavior, the functions of spyware extend well beyond simple monitoring. Spyware programs can collect various types of personal information, such as Internet surfing habits, sites that have been visited, but can also interfere with user control of the computer in other ways, such as installing additional software, redirecting Web browser activity, accessing websites blindly that will cause more harmful viruses, or diverting advertising revenue to a third party. Spyware can even change computer settings, resulting in slow connection speeds, different home pages, and loss of Internet or other programs. In an attempt to increase the understanding of spyware, a more formal classification of its included software types is captured under the term privacy-invasive software.

In response to the emergence of spyware, a small industry has sprung up dealing in anti-spyware and anti-malware software. Running the software has become a widely recognized element of computer security best practices for all computer owners. A number of jurisdictions have passed laws, which usually target any software that is unknowingly installed to control a user's computer.

I once had a PC that was practically destroyed by this stuff. As soon as I became educated about what caused this to happen, I decided to tell everyone I knew with a computer my story and show them how I fixed my own PC with just one program and advised them of what they needed to do to prevent the same thing from happening to them. I found it here and never looked back: http://www.enigmasoftware.com/ It was the best software I ever purchased.