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I’ve formatted my home PC numerous times before. On several occasions, the reason that triggered the reformat is spyware. These nasty hidden programs sneak into your computer via various sources (websites, downloads, email, freeware) and eat up your system resources. Resources that I’m already short on to begin with.

Probably the worse attack of Spyware that I’ve experienced so far was a year back. At that time, my home PC was infected with several Adware that had crept in under the radar. It got to a point that it was popping up unsolicited ads every few minutes, regardless of what I was doing. If I was playing a game, it would pop up and cause my windows to shrink and my harddisk to trash due to memory shortage and page swapping. Programs would take minutes to load. Long enough for me to have a cuppa coffe or take a shower before it finally launches.

Out of desperation, I searched the web for free spyware removers. Unfortunately, it had gotten so bad that I didn’t have enough memory to launch most of the spyware removal software. Now that I think of it, I wonder if the anti spyware were not in fact spyware themselves. Scary thought. I eventually wound up doing a low level reformat of the harddrive and reinstalling all the applications. Needless to say, it was a painful experience and the due process of restoring the computer took several days.

Way back then, the number of spyware was just starting to mushroom. There was little to in the form of spyware prevention. Knowledge and understanding on such malicious pieces of code have since grown. Nowadays, its both big business creating spyware AND removing them. Too bad I hadn’t heard of software such as Spy Sweeper back then. It would have saved me a lot of grief.

It’s a preventive system, much like an antivirus software. When active, Spy Sweeper scans for dangerous and annoying spyware that may try to invade your system. It then terminates any found threats before they reach your system and your personal information. Spy Sweeper works in the background and is transparent to the user. It’s small foot print means that it won’t take up much resources (unlike traditional antivirus applications that eat up a chunk of your harddisk space and sets up a sprawling bazaar in your memory space).

This anti spyware system is available for US$29.95 (app RM100) for a single system license. This one time license fee includes life time support and updates. A fair price to pay for protecting your personal computer. If you have more than one computer at home, you can purchase a two additional licenses for US$10.00 extra.

After that last run-in with such annoying spyware, I’ve sworn to be more careful when surfing the web and installing products. With two firewalls warning me of anything unsolicited, I’m more or less protected. However, there’s no telling what might happen. I think I might just purchase a license. After all, they do have a 30-day money back policy, if I’m not satisfied with the performance. Will I need the extra protection, or won’t I? I’m as yet undecided on this. How about you? Have you ever had a bad experience? Do you think you need spyware protection?