Tips How to Identify Spyware On Your Computer

If you’ve never faced spyware problem, then you’re lucky…

But the fact is that around 90% of computers are being infected with spyware, thus becomes the most common problem for many technical support staffs, including major software companies. Spyware brings several different effects on your computer, from just plain annoying (like popups, slow performance, or system crashes) to downright dangerous (like stealing your passwords or sensitive personal or business information). So when you detect that spyware becomes present on your computer, you should actquickly to remove it and get your computer back in top condition. Here is something you can do.


Try to find out which programs might be spyware. You can usually tell the offending programs by checking the Windows Task Manager to see which programs are taking up the most system resources. Just press CTRL – ALT – DEL on your keyboard and then select the tab labeled “Processes”. You can sort the columns by clicking on the column heading, so do that for the column labeled “CPU”. By looking through this column, which is now sorted, you can tell if any of the programs currently running are taking up more than 90% of system resources. If so, jot down the name and do a quick search on Google to see it that’s normal. Some processes might be part of Windows so you’ll have to check. But more than likely, if you see several programs using a large amount of system resources and you’re not running any resource intensive programs like graphics or video editors, then you might have spyware on your system. But we’re not sure quite yet, so that’s where step two comes in.

Second, if a quick search on Google leads you to believe the suspect program is spyware, or if you didn’t find anything suspicious using step 1, it would be a good idea to run a spyware scanner on your system. There are several good programs that offer free scans so you can try before you purchase. However, it would be a good idea to go ahead and add a spyware remover to your set of software tools to protect your computer, just like your anti-virus program (you DO have an anti-virus program, right?).