Spyware Removal Tools Spyware* - you're infected and don't even know it! By conservative estimates, 9 out of 10 computers that connect to the internet are infected. And this includes people who are diligent about running their anti-spyware 2-3 times a week. Scary, huh? But what harm can spyware do, you ask? Well, here is a list of scary stuff to make your Halloween especially ironic - Spyware slows your machine down - when you are infected with spyware, your computer starts getting slower and slower, since the spyware runs in the background and goes out to various sites, it consumes your memory and hard disk resources. Spyware eats your bandwidth for breakfast - seconds after you start your computer, spyware starts hitting you with popups and starts communicating with remote machines (not in your home/office) across the world. So, since these bugs are pushing information to those servers and pulling information from those servers - net result? Your internet gets slower. Spyware can fish up your personal information - some particularly nastier bugs can log your keystrokes and report that to the mothership. So, potentially private information is not private anymore! This could include credit card information, passwords and other damaging stuff. As spyware gets more sophisticated, this could become a real and present danger! But how do they get past your firewall and antivirus? Well, you don't need to invite them in, in most cases. Some scripts (geek speak for the bugs) infect vulnerable websites and their webmasters haven't a clue. You go to this website to look up some information, and before you know it, a tiny piece of information is dumped on your machine, only to go out to the mother ship and download the actual nasty spyware that can give you ulcers. But I run an updated Antivirus Software (Norton/McAfee) and I have a firewall, so I am protected right? WRONG. You are still very vulnerable. Because, these bugs come in through your browser (port 80 traffic) and your firewall and your Antivirus cannot stop them.