How do you prevent!!!

How do you stop Spyware and other crap from getting on your comp and slowing everythhing down?? Everywhere on the net I go i seem to pick it up somehow ad I have to get my comp re-configured. I'm slowing learning how to tackle the "regedit".....but it takes a while to learn.

down load spybot and adaware aslo up grade to winxp service pack2

That's pretty much it...

Update to XP SP2, antivirus, ad-aware, get a hardware router...

1. Stop running Internet Exploerer.

2. Use firefox: http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/