Spyware is a type of software that gets installed on your computer that collects information about you and your computer habits and sends this information back to its masters. The most malicious of these programs will actually steal important personal information like passwords, credit card numbers, financial information, and anything else that may be stored on your computer. If this sounds scary and you want to do something about it it is time to learn the ins and outs of how remove spyware.

The first thing you need to do before you remove spyware removal is determine if you indeed have some form of this malware on your PC. There are several ways of doing this.

• The first is to use your built in Windows Task Manager to see if there are any unfamiliar programs running on your computer. To access this feature pres CTRL-ALT-DEL at the same time and click the Task Manager Button. Check under the processes tab to see what programs are currently running. This can be effective if you are computer savvy and know what you are looking at.
• You should also check your startup list to see which programs are running at the time of a reboot. Click Start-Run and type msconfig and click OK. This will list out all running programs, some of which may be spyware.
• The best way to determine if you have a spyware infection is to use a dedicated spyware removal tool or program to scan and remove any malware from your system.

Removal of spyware is an important part of any computer security program. We all know that virus protection is important but spyware and adware should be considered just as dangerous. For this reason it pays to have a dedicated spyware removal program that not only scans for infections but also actively blocks these malware programs from ever getting into you computer in the first place.

Prevention is the best defense against spyware. Protecting you computer can be done quite easily if you keep the following things in mind.

• Keep your software up to date and always choose latest security patches
• Adjust your Internet explorer security settings
• Don't forget to implement firewalls
• Try something other than Internet Explorer like Firefox or Opera
• Whenever you're going to download software from a website read all security warnings, privacy statements and license agreement carefully.
• Be alert while downloading some free music and movie file sharing programs because these are main source of spyware.