What is the different between Malware and spyware?

Also I have download AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition, will this cover both those two (Malware and spyware) plus other virus or do I have to download Anti-Malware and spyware protection





Thanks for your help in advance|||Malware, a portmanteau word from the words malicious and software, is software designed to infiltrate or damage a computer system without the owner's informed consent. The expression is a general term used by computer professionals to mean a variety of forms of hostile, intrusive, or annoying software or program code while Spyware is computer software that is installed surreptitiously on a personal computer to intercept or take partial control over the user's interaction with the computer, without the user's informed consent. |||malware


Malicious computer software that interferes with normal computer


functions or sends personal data about the user to unauthorized parties


over the Internet.








spyware?





Spyware is software that hides itself somewhere on your computer


collecting information about you and what you do on the internet.





Spyware can invade your privacy by passing on your personal details


without you even knowing that this is what it is doing.





If you shop on the internet using your credit or debit cards some


spyware can record your credit card details so beware!





Basic spyware


Spyware is often downloaded onto your PC when you download other free software. When you see a license agreement for any software you download


from the internet read it carefully.





Often buried in the licence agreement will be a disclaimer saying that


information about you and your browsing habits will be sent to the


company's website.


|||AVG Free will scan for Spyware, Virus intrusion and will pick Malware as well. It is never a good idea to have more than one Anti Virus scanner but you can have more than one Anti Spy-ware program, it is just that you only want one as the active scanner (so running) the rest to be running on demand only.


Spyware is usually hidden, often disguised with something else or just loaded without the users knowledge it is designed to intercept data, channel it to somewhere else or even take some control of the user's PC. Not to be confused with a virus, Spy-ware is hidden but not destructive.


Malware, is by definition, software designed to infiltrate or damage a computer system without the owner's informed consent. This is often damaging, certainly hostile and definately intrusive, and always very annoying pieces of program code.


It gets its name from the words MALicious and softWARE (just like modem - MOdulator and DEModulator).


|||Malware is generally any program that is specifically designed to do bad things to your computer... spyware would count as a sub-group, but is designed specifically not do anything bad to your computer itself, but to unobtrusively (or sometimes not so, when they don't do it right) sit in the background and send off private information that it manages to collect from your files and online activity to... someone who you probably would rather not want to have that information. :)


Officially AVG 8+ does cover both, and viruses depending on how you set it up, and only up to the extent that they any such program can. |||Spyware is specific software that tracks what you do on your computer - Web sites visited, cookies downloaded, forms filled in etc. and sends it to a third party that steals and uses the info against you. Malware consists of both viruses and spyware and any other software that you didn't authorize to be downloaded or run on your PC. Get the Anit-Malware software as well to cover the spyware etc.|||They're pretty similar. Spyware looks at information on your computer and passes it to someone who has no right to see it. It doesn't actually change anything.





Malware can cause some damage to your files, your hard disk or even your computer. It's designed to just screw things up - often permanently.





Neither of these are exactly the same as a virus, so you need additional protection from what AVG is giving you. Get either Spybot Search %26amp; Destroy or Spyware Blaster. One of these in combination with AVG should give you all the protection you need.





Good luck.|||Maleware is a generic term for any downloaded item that causes disruption of any type.





Spyware is a type of maleware designed to oversee what you are doing and reporting it back to another party. An example is a monitoring software that moniters keystrokes and sends them elsewhere where someone can identify user names and passwords.|||Spyware "spys" on you. Malware is short for malicious software and it damages your computer.


AVG will only protect your computer from viruses. You will need to download another program to deal with malware and spyware. I would recommend Spybot Search and Destroy. |||Malware is usually destructive in nature, whereas spyware just tracks your internet usage.|||Use AVG for online protection, use malware bytes to scan your computer every so often to make sure nothing sneaked passed.