until recently i thought my system was fairly clean of spyware. i run Ad-aware and spybot S&D about once a week and have a decent firewall. figured i was fine. then someone pointed me to Spywareblaster.
i installed and ran it and found over 500 pieces of spyware and 7 trojans. this program claims to prevent new spyware from being installed and also gives details on the type of spyware and how its getting into the system.
those of you who are depending on AD-Aware and Spybot to keep things clean may want to check this out.
*one message of caution though. some freeware that comes bundled with spyware mare not work if you remove the spyware portion of the program. just read the info on the spywareblaster site.
Spywareblaster:
http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html