OMG, a piece of spyware on MY machine...

I've been smug. I didn't pay much attention to what's on my home Windows PC to the point where I didn't even take the basic precautionary steps for protecting one's PC that seem to be standard fare. I felt I didn't really have to. I mean, I don't execute programs emailed to me, I don't click on executable links, I don't install anything a web site asks me to (unless I independently grab said item from a trusted site, not the one they link, e.g. Flash updates and such). And I don't buy Sony CDs. For years I only booted up my PC at home to play Evercrack and then check email or web search for directions and such. Now, I still do those things but added iPod/iTunes to the regular usage list. Oh, I'm also on a re-newed mission to archive/scan/purge my collection of documents and other paper stuffs.

However over the weekend, a piece of spyware has been popping up unexpectedly. Never seen it on this new machine that I've had since late last year. Where did I get that? I pondered. Turns out it came over from my old machine when I transfered a bunch of stuff. Failing to effectively rid it on my own, I finally downloaded something sensable to scan/remove spyware: Ad-aware. Low and behold it notified me of several other things that I was unaware of. It was a sobering moment. Now I'm left with considering the possible virus-scanners out there, most of which I detest installing due to annoyingly bad experiences with Norton Anti-Virus (and even McAfee). Those programs, while good to have were very intrusive and always seemed to cause problems with programs I use, especially games. I just want a virus checker that I can run on my own when I feel I need to, not one that creates popups at the most inconvenient times, one that doesn't pester me every 5 minutes to update it, one that doesn't slow my bootup to a crawl, one that doesn't reside on my taskbar, one that doesn't always reside in memory unless I'm actively running it.

Relatedly, I hate that every single program that I install wants to put an auto-run or other memory-resident item on my taskbar, and put icons in a gazillion places.