I've just helped a friend clean Spyaxe, a particularly nasty piece of spyware, off his computer. This little beasty took away several hours of his time he'd more profitably use studying for exams. In case any of my readers have this problem, I figured I'd post the fix here:

Symptoms: You have frequent popups and a little warning symbol in your Windows system tray saying something along the lines of "You are infected with spyware, click here for a removal tool."

Fix: I've not tried it myself, but there is a trusted solution at Nick's Computer Security. Use at your own risk.

By the way, if you're ever stuck with spyware and want to get it removed, the easiest way to find a fix is to Google for "[name of spyware] remove". I know it seems simple, but believe it or not that doesn't occur to a lot of folks. Two words of advice: alway read to the bottom of any removal forum (as earlier entries may have solutions that turned out to be false starts), and only take advice from blogs or bulletin boards that clearly address many spyware problems, like Nick's or Malwareremoval.com. (The latter is important because some spyware artists are now using websites that look like Spyware Removal tools.)

According to one site, the problem may not be Spyaxe itself but instead an overagressive affiliate using spyware to market the product. I'm not sure I buy that, but if it is, this highlights the common problem of rogue affiliates that plague so much of the internet. (For instance, much of the spam I get on TYoH is from affiliates of two major online gambling sites.) I've an interesting legal idea regarding this which I hope to be posting shortly.

More on the problem here.