At one time or another, almost all computers that are online will become infected with some sort of spyware and most computer owners will never know it. Your personal info could be collected and sent off to a foreign country without your knowledge.

Your computer can have become infected with spyware from anything you download. It may have come bundled with your innocent looking download and installed and is now running in the background without your knowledge. Spyware will use up a lot of computer resources slowing down your PC. Your mouse may become jerky, your screen may freeze or your applications may become very slow to load. Ever notice your computer is running, grinding away working hard, while you're not even on it? Any of these may be an indication of spyware.

So how do you find out if you're infected? Since the Windows operating system does not come with anything built in, you will have to download a third-party program. While there are some free ones, you can download and run they're not really recommended. The truth is they don't do a complete job. Some are even designed that way to encourage you to upgrade to their paid version. You are better off investing in a professional cleaner/scanner.

The saying "you get what you pay for" is true in this case. If professional spyware cleaner will do a complete job the first time, and prevent any future infections before they happen. Plus you can schedule them to do routine maintenance on your computer when you're not using it. This will keep your computer free from any malicious programs.

It's amazing that most people never perform any maintenance on their computer or scan for spyware until their computer slows to a snail's pace. Identity theft has become a major problem and the way most people lose their personal information is from spyware. If you have a key logger running on your computer that you do not know about it maybe collecting your user names and passwords every time you login somewhere, like your bank or PayPal. It happens all the time, people log into their bank account and find out it has been cleaned out. Don't become one of them.

Recently people have been getting a new infection on her computer that will cause a pop-up window indicating that Windows has detected a spyware infection. The truth about this notice is that you are already infected and Windows is not indicating that, the spyware program you're infected with is causing the pop-up itself. It's actually a clever but dirty way for the manufacture to try and sell their product.