Spyware making your life sad? Try some of these tips

Anti Spyware Software: Use more than one, use them regularly.

Adaware – http://Lavasoft.de download the VX2 plugin for it also.
Ewido: – http://www.google.com (free mode is more than good enough)
Microsoft Anti* Beta http://www.microsoft.com
Spybot: http://security.kolla.de

Hijack This is another useful tool to see if you have anything that should not be there.

Tips:
Avoid browsing any porn or “popular” sites with lots of advertising using internet explorer.
Don’t install toolbars (Google is orrite, yahoo might be as well)
Popup says need to install XYZ dont click ok.

Avoid Peer to Peer apps (for windows) like the plauge most of these are funded through the installation of spyware onto end users PC. Research them before installation (utorrent, Azureus are good bit torrent clients).

Make sure that the site you are downloading from is legit, make sure (use google to double check) that the site you visit is the actual site that the software is released on (ie: microsoft.com for ALL microsoft downloads, dont use micr0softupdateness.com/speshulpatches/ if you were directed to by some page which might or might not exist)

Dont click on the “You have a problem with your PC”

Dont download the free little handy apps that might be available on the net without scanning and researching them thoroughly beforehand.

Do not use an Admin or Power User level account to do everything. Create a standard user account, its not immune to some of this, but it helps

Try Opera http://www.opera.com or Firefox http://mozilla.org rather than IE, they are a lot less suseptible to this. (Some places see almost 50/50 IE/FF distribution (Somethingaweful.com for exampe) which means their usage is growning, and awareness for web dev’s is too.

Is Antivirus Needed, anti virus does NOT typically stop or pick up on Spyware infestations:
Free versions that people report good experiences of: Avast, Antivir and AVG Free Edition (http://free.grisoft.com)