What is difference between antivirus and spyware?

Technically, "virus," "worm" and "trojan" refer to the ways malware travels from machine to machine, while "Adware" and "Spyware" refer to what they do on the machine. Because viruses were the first form of malware, the term has generally become associated with malware that causes malicious mischief.

A virus travels by attaching itself to other files, usually executable files. MS Word .doc files were some of the earliest targets because the programming language (Visual Basic) was free, and people readily emailed Word files to others.

A trojan, named after the famed Trojan Horse of the Trojan war, is a program that purports to do one thing but instead causes havoc. They often travel by enticing people to download them, often through phony emails.

A worm is malware that manages to travel on its own.

Adware is a form of malware that advertises web sites. It can infect a browser so badly that it's useless.

Spyware is malware that silently sits on a machine spying on the owner's habits and, worse, confidential information, such as passwords, Social Security Numbers, and credit card and bank account numbers, then sends the information back to its master.

Viruses, trojans and worms could all be adware, spyware or just malicious software.

Hope that helps.

What is difference between antivirus and spyware?abtuvurys 2005