My Windows computer here at work has become more and more annoying to use, with unblocked pop-ups, task bar items, and toolbars constantly doing things that they're not supposed to. Apparently some adware and spyware programs had taken up residence, and they were not good neighbors (they never are).

So after some six hours and many reboots, they appear to be gone, and the computer's working a lot faster than it did before.

If you want to check your system for these pesky programs, I'd recommend mixing and matching all of the following programs, because none does the job itself, and it seems necessary for all of them to be used to get rid of everything, although that would depend on what's actually present.

SpySweeper
Ad-Aware
Spybot Search & Destroy
BPS Spyware Remover
HijackThis (perhaps the most useful but dangerous as well)
Bazooka

Thankfully all of these have free versions, but some require careful use as they could interfere with programs you want to keep. Many free (and useful) programs that you can download now bundle adware and spyware into them so be careful out there.