Not enough can be written at this time about spyware. It is quickly surpassing other Internet annoyances, like spam and viruses, in the amount of time wasted fighting it and the amount of frustration users have getting it. Spyware is insidious in its ability to secretly install on your computer, capture information about you, and flat out kill the performance of your machine.

It may sound a little glib, but it’s pretty easy to tell when a computer has been zapped by spyware. Try this checklist:

• Has your computer suddenly started running very slowly?
• Has getting on the Internet become a major pain, if it’s even possible?
• Are you inundated by popup messages, or do you have Internet Explorer windows that won’t open or go away?
• Has you Internet browser’s start page or home page suddenly changed (e.g., it changes from msn.com or espn.com to some unknown address)?
• Do you have a bunch of new Favorites or Bookmarks loaded in your browser?
• Do you have teens or pre-teens in your house that use the computer a lot?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, it’s my experience that you have some form of spyware on your computer. If you had more than one affirmative response, your odds are simply that much greater.

That’s the easy part. Fortunately, spyware is easy to spot. Unfortunately, stopping it is difficult. There are some good free tools for cleaning up spyware, as well as helping prevent infestations. However, the battle is less coordinated than other computer fights. Don’t get me wrong. The folks that put out the two recommended killers, Spybot S&D and Ad-Aware, are doing a bang-up job. And, some of the big names like Symantec have offered some tools. But compared to the fight against viruses and spam, spyware fighters are like this country’s earliest freedom fighters: under-armed, under-funded and under-manned, but full of zeal to defeat an enemy. Spybot creator Peter Kolla in Germany and Ad-Aware’s Nicolas Stark in Sweden are modern-day versions of Paul Revere. My hat is off to them for their dedication and energy to providing free software to beat back this menace. In fact, you might consider springing for the non-free versions of their software (or donate to the cause in Spybot’s case) if you’ve benefited from their help. Find Spybot S&D at www.safer-networking.org and Ad-Aware at www.lavasoftusa.com.

Now, you can start the battle. Once you’ve downloaded and installed both Ad-Aware and Spybot S&D (yes, I said both), make sure you keep them up-to-date at least once a week. Run both scanners weekly to keep your machine clean. If you find a bunch of spyware on each scan, start updating and scanning twice a week. More? Update and scan daily.

Next, if you don’t have Windows XP Service Pack 2 and its included popup blocker for Internet Explorer, either get Service Pack 2 or get a popup blocker from Google (http://toolbar.google.com/) or Yahoo! (http://toolbar.yahoo.com/). Most spyware is installed by exploiting programming in Internet Explorer.

A little more radical way to fight spyware is to change your Web browser. A growing number of users are ditching Microsoft’s Internet Explorer in favor of Mozilla’s FireFox browser. You can download FireFox for free at http://www.mozilla.org. My favorite feature is called “tabbed browsing”, which allows you to have one browser window with multiple “tabs” open with different Web sites.