You know that when you go to certain Web sites across the network that advertisers are downloading to your hard drive little programs called "spyware" or "adware"? These little programs that are installed on your computer with virtually no evidence that is visible to you track your moves, your preferences and even some track your keyboard strokes and personal habits!

What is spyware? In easy terms, spyware is software that transmits personally identifiable information from your computer to some place on the Internet without your knowledge. Spyware is typically not a product that you install itself, sometimes it is a small add-on, that you may or may not disable during another software install. In most cases, the EULA (End User License Agreement) somewhere has a few lines telling you about privacy matters, but typically most users don't read the complete EULA and never know they have inadvertently added the spyware on their system.

A less threatening sort is adware. Adware is similar to spyware, but does not transmit personally identifiable information, or at least the collector promises not to sell it and you have to trust that they will not. I prefer to not trust folks who without my knowledge put adware on my system! Instead, aggregated usage information is collected. Adware is also often a side-effect of spyware, as both monitor you for the sole purpose of delivering advertisements that are especially tailored to your habits.

Another kind that is detected under the spyware category are tracking cookies which you've read about here in the past. Cookies are used all over the Internet in useful, helpful and non-personally identifiable ways. Advertisement companies often set cookies whenever your browser loads a banner from them. In that case and if that cookie contains a certain type of code, that company gets notified about every site you visit that contains their ads. Yikes!! :-0

If your computer is acting erratic or is running way slower than it has in the past it could be due to the multitude of adware and spyware that is on your system without your knowledge. As a matter of fact, I just spoke with a client who had 344 instances of ad or spyware on her system!

You can clean up this mess and regain your privacy by installing a software program that keeps track of these bits and bytes that are put on your computer without your knowledge. I use a no cost program called SpyBot Search & Destroy. Since it is no charge there is no harm in trying to see if something snooped into your computer. I bet you'll be surprised at what you find!

Although this program is offered at no charge, donations are accepted and I recommend you donate a couple bucks if you use this very valuable program to help support its developer's efforts. If you do not have adware/spyware monitoring software on your system, it would behoove you to do so immediately. This is a very busy site, so you may have to try again to get through and download the program. Saying it is worth the effort is an understatement!