Is it the same as adware?

Spyware is quite different from Adware which is a program you have installed without realising its secondary potential to relay information from your activities on the Web and to share such information with advertisers; you in turn you could be bombarded with junk mail.

Adware also includes cookies, which are small programs placed on your computer while you visit shopping sites. Cookies are normally harmless. Without them, e-commerce would be a tiring exercise in filling out forms every time you visited each site. If in doubt, read a site's privacy policy before you enter personally identifiable information at their web site.

What sort of personal information can spyware and adware send to other people?
Adware can send a record of the websites that you have visited.
Spyware is different. Some kinds of spyware called keyloggers can record all of your keystrokes and transmit them without your knowledge.

What harm can these programs cause?

Apart from the disastrous effects of identity theft, spyware also causes numerous side-effects.
If you've noticed that your PC has become slow and unreliable, has trouble connecting and acts strangely when you're surfing the Internet, then it's likely you've got spyware on your system.
The slowness and unreliability comes from the spyware consuming your system's memory and processing power at the expense of the programs you actually want to run.

How can I stop spyware from getting onto my PC?

Popular free applications like music-sharing programs and even instant messaging software can come with spyware or adware bundled. If in doubt, don't install these programs.
Keep your web browser up-to-date with Microsoft's security patches by going to Microsoft's Update Page :
http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/ (Beware though. Make a restore point on your computer before installing any security patch from microsoft)
And make sure you NEVER click on links in spam messages, no matter how tempting it is! These links will often open sites that download spyware and hijack your browser.

How can I stop spyware from stealing my personal information?

You should install a personal firewall to stop spyware "phoning home" in the event that it does get onto your system. We recommend ZoneAlarm firewall Professional. but there are some good free firewalls around too. (ZoneAlarm has a free home user version available here).

How can I detect and remove spyware from my PC?

Download a spyware detection and removal tool. I recommend that you select from the following list of products. They seem to have different strengths so use more than one of them.
C.D.S. Computer Services Ltd has A-squared running in the back ground all the time with Spy-Bot and Ad-Aware run once a month as a safety net.  See our Opinion page to find out why I picked A-Squarednfor our main spyware killing system.

Spybot Search and Destroy
Malwarebytes
A-Squared

Be very wary about downloading other spyware removal tools, because many 'anti-spyware products' actually install spyware of their own on your computer! Then claim they are the only one that can remove them. Once you pay for the program of course!!