Computers are such a major part of our daily lives, that I think most of us take for granted just how important they are, and how much sensitive information we keep on them.

Internet banking, online retail purchases, taking care of utility bills and booking holidays. Now with the rise of blogging, we have many more people earning their living direct from their PC, and millions more like myself who just invest a lot of time and effort into our online lives, no matter how many or how few readers you have. And yet, literally millions of people have no anti-virus, or to a certain extent even more importantly, no anti-spyware software on their machines. Some people aren’t even aware of what spyware is. Simply put, it is malicious software that installs itself on your PC without permission, and then records certain functions and activities from your system, and sends the information to it’s owner. This can range from innocuous, yet annoying things like your surfing habits, right up to your key passwords for all of your most important software.

I have been running anti-spyware (and anti-virus) for many years, and one of the best products I’ve used is Spy Sweeper from Webroot. The first time I used it, on a machine that had been ‘cleaned’ by other products, it found over 1,400 different examples of spy software and successfully removed them. So impressive was this, I recommended it to the IT guy where I worked, and he bought a license and in one weekend we cleaned all 15 PC’s in the office. No PC had less than 1000 items on, and the Boss’s PC contained something like 3000 separate incidences. He was the kind of guy who would open any attachments he received….

It cleaned the lot, and subsequent re-scans over the next few months kept them clean, with only the odd piece sneaking on between scans. It really does it’s job, and if you have no anti-spyware software, I would recommend you giving this product a try. The alternative doesn’t bear thinking about…