When you browse the internet, spyware programs lurk and you never know when they will invade your system. They will usually silently creep into your system and without you knowing it, they have started to wreak havoc, destroying some applications and intruding into your privacy. They will also bombard you with unwanted pop-ups or redirect you to websites that you don’t want to go to. Worst, spyware may even steal your personal identity and use it maliciously.

Computer experts disclose that 90% of computers are infected by spyware programs with the users not knowing that their computers are infected. This happens because one needs a separate uitlity to be able to detect spyware infections. Spyware are hardly detected by anti-virus programs.

Here are some of the things that will tell you that your computer has spyware:

You see frequent pop-up windows containing advertisements whether you’re online or working offline;

Your computer slows down; the performance has been dramatically reduced;

Frequent website redirects especially to websites that are considered as affiliates or with marketing content;

Frequent unauthorized changes in your home page and searches;

Unauthorized and unwanted toolbars like Mirar toolbar that are added to your browser.

Don’t fret. You can do something about these spyware and prevent them from attacking your computer. Here are useful tips to prevent and delete spyware from your computer:

You need a reliable anti-spyware program that will be able to scan your computer and detect and remove the spyware from your computer. There are many programs to choose from when your browse the internet. It is essential that you choose a reliable program. As much as possible avoid the freeware anti-spyware as they have limited capabilities and some are even used as a disguise by spyware. The moment you download these spyware in disguise, they will bring more harm than good.

After you have downloaded the anti-spyware software, you need to run a full system scan of your computer to detect spyware that may have entered your system already. Once detected, these spyware will be removed from your system. For maintenance and prevention, you need to enable the real time protection and run a full system scan from time to time.

For more effective scan, it will help if you activate the scan while the computer is running in a safe mode. To run your computer is a safe mode, you need to restart your computer then press F8 at the startup. Scroll down and select safe mode from the displayed options.

It is also important that when running the full scan for the first time, you run the scan twice to guarantee that the spyware programs are completely removed from your system. This is especially true notwithstanding if the first scan yields no spyware infections. Often, files that are ignored in the first scan will be captured by the second scan.

Lastly, you need to have a good and reliable registry cleaner installed in your system. Spyware enters the windows registry and alters its processes. It has the capability to congest and balloon the registry considered to be the heart and soul of your computer. You need to clean the registry and fix any corrupt entries caused by spyware. Just search for an effective registry cleaner, there are many in the World Wide Web.