Are spyware and spam really big business? I’ve begun to wonder what actually people achieve from creating spyware, trojans, spam and viruses. Is it productive for them or are they just people who are really bored with nothing better to do. The spyware blockers and ant-virus industry is huge and maybe they have something to do with it?

I really don’t know anymore. I watch my computer and get tired of the amount of times my spyware and anti-virus software updates with new fixes. But I have to say it has been a while since I had any annoying popup ads or unwanted changes to my tool bar. So I guess my Spyware Doctor is working.

But then I also get tired of clearing my junk mail folder in my email client. It’s truly amazing how many spam emails I get. Do these people really believe that I will actually read one of these and take action on their email. Some don’t actually make any sense.

Then there are the spam blog comments on my blog! Those are clearly some kind of blackhat search engine optimization technique, which undoubtedly the search engines would not be stupid enough to pay attention to. Yet still, I get hundreds of these every week!

Spam, spyware and viruses are making me tired. Is the world wide web just full of this rubbish? What will happen in twenty years time, will the world wide web come to a standstill because it is full of rubbish. Has it become a toxic dump for mindlessness?

I guess I’m just having a bad day and am tired of ‘cleaning’ my email, desktop and blog, EVERY DAY! Leave me alone. I have work to do you know and object to this invasion of my space, albeit on my computer. There I’ve had my rant.

The good thing is, and there is a good thing, the software I have to install to keep me sane from these attacks does actually work.

I use Microsoft Outlook and this comes with its own spam filter and I have to say it works. Although you can’t help looking into the junk folder, can you? I always wonder if there’s some important email sitting in there that needs my attention. So, although it is automatically put in there by my spam filter I still feel the need to scan those emails. That’s my personal issue that I have to deal with I guess!

Then there’s the spam blog commenting on my blogs. I use Akismet which works great. It automatically detects a lot of spam. Again, I always have the tendency to want to check out these comments in case someone is trying to actually communicate with my blog. Inevitably it’s hardly ever the case. Just a string of nonsense which some genius thinks will help get his website ranking high in Google, moron. Do you really think I would auto approve my blog comments?

Then there is the spyware and viruses. These are without a doubt the nastiest beasts out there and can cause the most damage. In fact I lost one computer to these criminals.

My first experience of these was probably about two years ago when my laptop started to show pop up ads and other nonsense. Even my homepage had changed by itself. I did a search on Google and it was a classic case of Spyware.

So, I did a search for Spyware Blockers and then realized the magnitude of this problem. I’d never heard of spyware but when I searched for spyware blockers and spyware removers I was suddenly inundated with huge choice.

I started to read up about how your computer gets infected by viruses and spyware. I eventually opted to install Spyware Search and Destroy and Malware bytes. They both worked great and got rid of the offender(s).

I then ran spyware search and destroy on a regular basis and all was good for a while. Then last year on my desktop I got something that really shook me.

I started to get messages, that looked like windows messages, saying that I had spyware and should ‘click here’ to fix the problem. I wasn’t about to click on this baby as I had read somewhere that this was just spyware trying to get me to buy a spyware blocker/remover.

So, I tried and tried to cancel out of it but it never allowed me to. Eventually my whole pc froze up. I left it for ages hoping it would return but no. So then I pressed the power button and tried to reboot. That was the end of my PC!

I got the dreaded black screen every time I booted. My hard drive was gone and the boot.ini had been wiped too. This virus, Trojan or spyware, whatever it was ruined my computer. I was livid!

So, I tried to see the positive side of it, there was one I guess. My computer was out of date and it was time for an upgrade. So, I bought myself a new PC and the first thing I did was install a spyware blocker and anti-virus program.

That was when I came across Spyware Doctor with Antivirus. This looked ideal because it had both a spyware blocker and an anti-virus program, in one. There were lots of reviews online, probably mostly by PCTools.

No, seriously it seemed like a top notch piece of software. And I have to say I have not been disappointed. It is very easy to install and basically does everything without your intervention. This aspect I really liked.

After the initial setup you just leave it to do its stuff. It downloads what it calls a smart update almost every day. Which is reassuring an also a bit worrying. It means there are new spyware and viruses coming online all the time.

Spyware Doctor also runs a regular scan. It does what it calls intelli-scans, which are quick scans and then also a full scan once a week. Although, you can manually run a scan whenever you want. You can also set it so that it just deletes any offenders automatically or get it to tell you when it finds something.

It even stops me browsing websites that are deemed dangerous. So, I would thoroughly recommend Spyware Doctor. It is easy to use and I think a bargain for the peace of mind you get with it.

I have to say that Spyware Doctor from PCTools is a great piece of software. It works perfectly and to date I have not had any further infections. It must easily be one of the best spyware blockers on the market. It has won many industry awards and is regularly recommended in magazines.

The next thing on my list is my smart phone. I have yet to experience any spyware infecting my phone but I’m sure it’s on the way and I’ll need some kind of special software for my phone that will stop spyware and viruses!