Paul McDonald, creator of http://www.TheBestSpywareRemovers.com , has some important tips for internet users regarding how to protect themselves from spyware and malware.

A stunning 80% run absolutely no antispyware software on their computers at all, as the number of Internet users has grown over 200% since 2000, reaching a staggering 6.6 billion in March of 2008 and industry experts estimate that over 90% of those Internet users will get infected with spyware.

Many are doing things online that increase their risk of getting infected with spyware and in turn increasing their risk of becoming one of the 9 million people that the FTC estimates fall prey to identity theft each year, and most don't even know it, and they are not even running antispyware software.

McDonald said: "The first thing users need to do is get themselves top of the line antispyware software, and not just settle for using the freebie software."

Free antispyware software typically relies on historical observation of known locations within a computer's operating system and registry where spyware installs itself to determine if any changes have taken place. In many instances, the problem with this type of detection is twofold asthe software may report a false positive, or a file that is legitimate and should be there due to a new program installation or update and the software also falls in detecting much of the newest spyware resulting in many of the most dangerous spyware left running on your computer.

With the spyware detection method in most cases reliant upon a database of known spyware programs, the most effective antispyware will cost anywhere from $25-$45, so users will rarely, if ever will see a false positive. The key here is that antispyware software should be purchased from a vendor that has a large database of spyware definitions, who updates that database at least once per week if not more, and who also offers free downloadable updates of those definitions into their software.

According to McDonald, the other thing Internet users can do to protect themselves against spyware and identity theft is to educate themselves. "If Internet users spent even an hour doing some research on how to protect themselves online, it would go a long way towards stunting the upward trends in spyware infection and identity theft," says McDonald.