Spyware vs Virus

Spyware

Spyware is software that can display advertisements (such as pop-up ads), collect information about you, or change settings on your computer, generally without your consent. Spyware can damage your computer or cause you to lose important data.

In a general sense, spyware are programs designed to record your various activities on your computer (hence the prefix "spy") may it be internet browsing habits or software that you use on your computer. Spyware usually isn't designed to be directly harmful to your computer, unlike a virus, but instead can be extremely annoying, invasive to your privacy and suck system resources causing slow downs to your computer.

Virus

A computer virus is a malicious computer program designed specifically to replicate itself and spread from computer to computer. Like spyware, a virus can damage hardware, software, or data.

Viruses on the other hand are designed to run helter-skelter through your computer and caused actual, intentional damage to the computer itself. This can be in the form of corrupting files on your computer, damaging your personal documents, photos, music track, and more to rendering the computer completely unusable. Viruses usually don't have an ulterior motive like spy ware programs do, they are made to maliciously damage your computer and cause you problems. Like human viruses, computer viruses also replicate themselves, and spread by embedding into email attachments and other shared files. It only takes one file getting "infected" and distributed online (many times unknowingly) to spread at alarming rates if that file is accessed by others.