Spying isn't just for the CIA any more.  These days hackers and companies alike are dropping small, hard to find software snippets in your computer that let's them know exactly what you are doing on your PC.   These programs are called Spyware, Adware, or Dialers (randomly dials toll numbers such as 900 numbers) and can easily be installed on your PC by simply downloading a "free" program you think is for weather, clip art or file sharing. In reality, it's not free, the cost - your privacy. Sometimes the cost is greater as some Spywares can literally record each keystroke you make on your keyboard and send all the passwords and credit card numbers you type to a criminal online. This is why it's very important to keep up with your Windows Updates. Periodically downloading windows updates will assure you have the latest patches that prevent hackers from entering your PC through Windows vulnerabilities. 

In addition to privacy concerns and financial issues, poorly written Spyware applications are notorious for slowing down computers, cause system errors and even crash your computer altogether. With this in mind, think twice about downloading "anything" from the web.

How to check if you have Spyware installed ...

Whether you are a novice or even a computer wiz, you might want to consider trying out a program like Ad-Aware or PestPatrol. The reason being that there are so many Adwares these days that it's hard to keep track of them all and constantly scan your PC for each of them.  The same reason why you should have an Anti-Virus program running on your machine at all times. At PestPatrol's web site (http://www.pestpatrol.com), there's a tool called PestScan that you can use to quickly scan your PC to see if there are any Spywares, Adwares, etc. on your machine.  I can almost guarantee you that it will find something.  Before running it however, you will need to make sure to delete your temporary Internet files because PestScan will even display cookies.  To delete the cookies, you open Internet Explorer, select Tools and Internet Options. In the Internet Options screen, click Delete Cookies and Delete Files (make sure to check Delete all offline content). If you have Internet Explorer 5 or less, you will need to select Settings then View Files and then you will see all of your temporary Internet files.  Select all the files you see in this folder and click the delete button on your keyboard. Make sure the folder is empty before closing.

After running PestScan you will get a list of Adwares, Spywares, Exploits and/or more. At this point, you can either research each one via Google and figure out how to remove each one or purchase PestPatrol for $39.95 which constantly monitors and removes these intruders automatically for you.

In addition to running an Anti-Virus and Anti-Adware programs, consider getting a firewall if you do not already have one. Zone Labs has a great product called ZoneAlarm which monitors any and all internet requests and responses made by any program on your computer as well as those outside your computer trying to get in. At $49.95, you can add ZoneAlarm to your arsenal in the war against malicious programmers.  ZoneAlarm works by analyzing traffic then asks if you would like to allow program x to send data over the Internet, you can either approve or deny.  You can also have a preset of programs allowed to transfer data such as your web browsers and email editors and the rest will be blocked from sending and receiving information over the Internet.

Don't wait until it's to late, this online war is real and can cost you your privacy and thousands of dollars. For just $150 or so, you can be well protected and have peace of mind that your computer is safe from intruders.