[witnesstothefall]

An excellent alternative to "Spybot" is "Ad-aware"

I use them both, in conjunction. Each will occasionally find something the other missed. And both are freeware.

[gatorgriz]

Like you I use both Spybot and Ad-aware and I've had great luck with both of them... I run each of them about once a week to scrub the spyware and garbage from my PC...

I'd never, ever install anything based on a pop-up or e-mail message...