Ad-Aware 6.0 Professional

Ad-Aware Professional from Lavasoft is pretty much the cream of the crop for spyware and adware removal. Lavasoft offers a stripped down version free for personal use, but the Professional version offers tons of features and functions not available in the free version. The free version will only do manual scans when the user initiates them, but the Professional version proactively protects the computer from getting spyware in the first place and easily qualifies as one of my Best Picks.