What is the difference between a virus and spyware?
Spyware can range from annoying to invasive. Spyware can target your shopping habits so it will in turn display annoying popup banners to try and direct your interest to that website. Popups can also be to random sites. This is not just an occasional popup when you go to a certain website. This is a continuous bombardment of popups even when you are not surfing the web. Spyware is a program that is running on your computer that needs to be removed. Other spyware can actually direct your web traffic through their servers, even encrypted information. Viruses are more destructive in nature. They can gather information off your computer. They can also use your computer as a weapon against other computers. The person who launched the virus is looking for computers that he/she can use in launching an attack and not being detected by using your computer as the source of attack.
