Since my one small problem with Fast PC Secrets had to do with the anti-spyware, I thought that I'd share my own solution. That's where that overlay came from that you saw. It should only appear once a week in case you come back (actually I'll probably up that to once a month or so as soon as I'm satisfied it's working OK) - after all once you see it you can always use the sidebar signup if you decide to pick up PC Health: Beating the Spyware Epidemic.

As I said in the layover, the pdf has some information on Spyware (and you can find more definitions by browsing through the Geektionary definitions) and information about and links to several free anti-Spyware and anti-Adware programs that I use regularly. These programs are not active scanners so they don't use up your PC's resources. They include blocking of bad sites and known dangers as well as system scanning and fixing. So they'll help you clean out any junk that did get onto your machine - if you run them regularly and keep them updated.

The files that these programs use to protect you are updated regularly so you do need to remember to both run them and check for updates. I'd strongly recommend that you run them at least once a week and each time you run, also go ahead and check for updates. It's very easy to fall out of the habit of running and upgrading these programs - until your machine gets trashed or slows to a crawl and you end up moaning and wishing you'd remembered.

I know I have to keep working on remembering to do it so I suspect other people have the same problem. If your machine can support running active scanners for both anti-virus and anti-spyware protection, that's usually the best solution since the programs can be set to automatically check for and download updates. With my machine, it just slows down way too much under the combined load of active scanners and the number of applications I need to run simultaneously.