[jims69camaro]

if you have tracked it down to its folder and it serves you no purpose and is not system dependent, then add/remove programs and get it out of there.

think of it like this (as far as speed goes): you can do one thing very fast. you can do two things at once, but not as fast as only doing one. you can do four things at once, but not as fast as two. now, ramp that up into the tens of thousands of things we expect our computers to do all at once, and you can see how it gets bogged down. spyware (and viruses, and all bad programs) are invisible to you, so you don't know they're running. for you, nothing has changed, only the number of minutes it takes to startup your favorite game. these programs do exist and they are built to be hidden from a typical computer user. there are programs out there that can sniff them out and get rid of them, but theyre very expensive. also, there are services out there, as well, that do kinda the same stuff, but they are expensive as well. the cheap way out is to learn from others and do your own investigating. you'll not be able to find them all (not even the leading anti-virus companies can find all of them, which is why they have periodic updates.)