What is the Difference of Virus, Adware, Spyware?

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Antivirus is a a piece of malicious software code written to cause some kind of damage to a computer. Viruses spread, similarly to their biological namesake, from one machine to another and can spread havoc wherever they go. They are most commonly spread by sharing files with others or through email attachments where they can be setup to send themselves to all the addresses in your e-mail address book. *********************************************************************** Adware is usually downloaded and installed along with some other program without your knowledge and unlike a virus doesn't spread by itself. Very often you click "OK" without reading the terms and conditions and by doing so you agree to have the files installed. An example is you see a "free" program on offer that you think might be useful and download it without thinking. Even some anti-spyware programs install adware and the website earns money from the ads that are clicked on. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The catch is the files introduced are used to determine things like your surfing habits and the data is used to serve up popup ads or redirect your browser to a page other than the one you wanted. Some of the programs can be used to install keyloggers which can send back information about passwords and bank details etc. Adware is not a security problem it is more an annoyance especially when you have tend different programs trying show ads. The amount of computer resources it uses up slows your system to a crawl. *********************************************************************** Spyware is more malicious and evil intentioned and is designed to steal something from you. It can be downloaded by visiting the wring types of websites or along with other files the same way as adware. Spyware can often be hard to remove as it can cotinually recreate itself and hide somewhere on your hard drive.