Tonight I was on a family members computer to do some quick email/intranet checking and was amazed by how much stuff seemed to be going on in the background.
First thing I did was connect using a dial-up account which instantly caused a tab in the taskbar to appear with a purple icon. It wouldn't maximize, or would it right click so I have yet to find out what this does. (it disappears on disconnect and was not there when the computer was originally setup)
Second, I entered a URL that did not exist and for some reason IE started doing searches on top level domains. It tried .com, .org, .net, .edu etc and kept going. After that IE ended up displaying a search page from a company I've never seen or heard of before. Again, I looked and couldn't find how to turn this off. (IE has "do not search from the address bar" selected)
When the regular user/owner of the computer came home I asked what was all this. The reply was simple. "I don't know but It's not hurting anything". The system runs Nortons and I ran Ad-aware and only found 1 item so it's probably not all that bad, but I couldn't stand seeing things happen on the screen and not know why.
I consider myself extremely fussy on what I install and what happens in the background but so many just don't care and click yes for anything. This kind of behavior is a walk in the park for the distributors of viruses, spy-ware, spam-ware or any other software that shouldn't be installed causing unwanted results. It's always the innocent users that become the victims simply because they don't know or understand.
The same idea can be related with me going to a mechanic. I know enough about cars to drive one but after that I know absolutely nothing about how they work and could be taken for a walk in the park and screwed right under my nose without even knowing it. Unless I take somebody with me, I'd have no idea if they were being honest with me or not and install a ton of parts I don't need.