According to Webroot Software there is a high possibility that it is. Their report from August 2006 claims that around 9 out of 10 PCs in the world are infected by spyware.
They go on to say that:-
"During the second quarter of 2006, Webroot researchers found that 89 percent of consumer PCs were infected with an average of 30 pieces of spyware – a slight increase from the first quarter of 2006 when infection rates returned to alarmingly high levels after a supposed lull in spyware infections during the second half of 2005."
Even scarier the report states that consumers reliance on free anti–spyware programs is a major contributing factor to the increase, with many of the free programs not being up to date enough.
So what is spyware and is that little PC of yours really at risk? The answer is a resounding yes.
Spyware is malicious software designed to either take control of your PC or send out user information without the user realising it's happening. Put simply it's like having big brother watching your every move. The point of Spyware ranges from simply suppling information like what websites you may be looking at and what you might be searching for online to actually recording what a user types in order to discover passwords and other private information.
Spyware protection is big business because the simple fact is we all need it.
So how can we protect ourselves against this insanity? Let's start with a few spyware removal tools.
Windows has it's own built-in spyware tool (Windows Defender), which is still at beta stage, unfortunately it's recieved very bad publicity from the press and it seems it is much more designed to look after it's own needs than the users.
Spybot Search And Destory is also free and fares much better than the Windows program, you can find a review of that here.
The last one of the 3 big free programs is Ad-aware which is easy to use but doesn't provide email protection in it's free version which is a major omission. Get a review here.
The problem I've found with the free software is that not one of the big 3 does everything so I have to run all 3 programs to be completely covered which means my PC is constantly scanning for everything. It's a pain for sure.
There are a couple of dedicated spyware programs which aren't free but they do give you everything you need for your money.
SpywareBot does offer a free version of itself but again for full protection you'll need to upgrade. You can check that out here.
Xoft Spy SE is the other program and they offer you one free scan to see if your PC actually needs a spyware removal tool before the need to buy it arises. This program covers all your bases and is regularly updated to keep your machine clean. Find out more.
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