Comments on: Lavasoft Ad-Aware Free is vastly improved and with extra features in the new Anniversary Edition.

By: Adrian

Adrian — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 17:31:50 +0000

@Bill: It’s sad how everything nowadays gets politicized, I guess.
Comparing AdAware to the Obama administration? Sheesh. Truth is, it’s the corporate lobbies–Big Pharm, Big Insurance, and bull-headed flat-earthers of the Stupid Lobby who are keeping our country backwards, in my opinion.
However I do agree with you on one thing: AdAware will not stay off. I repeatedly set it to NOT run in the background, but it shows up as a process in Task Manager and on my Sys Tray.
So I guess I will dump it and switch to Malwarebytes — Ashraf, thanks for the link to the alt list of software, and your helpful site.

By: Bill

Bill — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 12:13:54 +0000

Just dumped adware anniversary ed…
It is a POS!
Keeps coming on, and crashing my internet link.
I set it repeatedly NOT to come on automatically, but it does, whenever it wants to.
So, I will NO longer ever use lavasoft’s software!
Too many bugs and problems!
In my estimation, it’s like the current government….
Doe’s what it wants, when it wants, damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead, right off the friggin’ cliff!
So Lavasoft and their products have just lost another customer!

By: Ashraf

Ashraf — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 22:21:03 +0000

@Adrian:Try http://dottech.org/featured/3174

By: Adrian

Adrian — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 21:47:57 +0000

Jeff or anyone – I’ve had it with Ad-Aware Anniversary Ed. also for all the reasons you’ve listed. It’s a pity. I do have an older machine and use XP, but the amount of CPU & memory use throughout the day is unsustainable.

My q. is: what have you found as a substitute for AdAware?

By: Jeff

Jeff — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 19:13:17 +0000

Yeah, I noticed that… Anyways, it’s gone, definitely gone. It actually makes these useless AAWTray.exe, and AAWService.exe go on my startup! I deleted tray before with WinPatrol, but I didn’t notice the damn service is set to autostart. Just what I need, a ******* hog at startup. That’s the last straw. Actually used Revo Advanced mode on this one.

By: Ashraf

Ashraf — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 05:33:04 +0000

Regardless of what PCMag says, be warned a lot of people are reporting false positives.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 05:20:13 +0000

True, but I’m still pretty paranoid about security. Just a year or two before, I never cared about it, and had dire consequences, twice. Definitely learned my lesson. Still, I will commence with the scan, then I’ll decide whether or not to keep it.

By: Ashraf

Ashraf — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 05:15:35 +0000

If you are running Avira AV Premium you have no need for antispyware – Avira covers spyware/adware pretty well as far as I know.

And the resource use is a lot less when compared to earlier Ad-Aware versions – that is what I meant.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 05:09:46 +0000

Just tested it out, and I don’t see what you mean by it using less resources. In fact, when I open the main application window, the cpu usage goes to 90%. Granted that my computer is quite old, and that I’ve never used this in it’s earlier versions, but this is not acceptable. It also leaves behind AAWService.exe, and AAWTray.exe running as well, even though I made it hide the tray, and prompted not to install the driver for it’s Ad Watch Live! So, basically, both is disabled yet still running in the background. So far, I’m disappointed, but I’ll at least make a scan in the near future, although it’s going to most likely show nothing, my customizations as “hijack, or other things”, or just minor threats like cookies. My protection is almost bulletproof, literally (ZA Firewall Pro, Avira AV Premium, Returnil VS Premium, Spyware Blaster, MVP HOSTS, Spybot Immunize, DropMyRights, Virus Total Uploader). I also have more great on-demand scanners, and even HijackThis, and there’s always online help. Therefore, Ad-Aware is pretty much useless, and one hell of a hog (at least for me).

By: Ashraf

Ashraf — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 01:44:49 +0000

internetexplorer,

You are pretty well covered, haha.

Ad-Aware AE is much better then Ad-Aware 08; however since you have pro, downgrading to Free just for a new version is a toss up. With all the features pro has, even the older slow version is slightly better in my opinion.

You sure you can’t upgrade from 08 -> AE?

Your mentioning Spyware Doctor reminds me that I know of a way to get one year free of PC Tools Internet Security…I will post it soon.

By: internetexplorer

internetexplorer — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 22:54:22 +0000

Along with some other goodies, the new issue of Hakin9 magazine has AdAware 2008 Pro (usually the paid version) on its free CD, so I’ll use that unless you say the one reviewed above is better. As to Threatfire, every time I hear something good about it, it seems there’s also some not-so-good news too. I like ZoneAlarm Security Suite so far and have it “tuned” to all my apps, so I’d need a good reason to change–like some problem with ZASS, e.g. I know it’s paid, but it is well-integrated and always seems to get the job done (so far). I do run an on-demand scanner from time to time especially for spyware and such threats, and an occasional one for viruses and the like also. The ones I have been using more recently are Spyware Doctor (which is also paid) and of course the Avira AntiVir Premium your article featured and showed me how to get for free. Do you see any holes in my protection? Thanks.

By: Ashraf

Ashraf — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 20:22:30 +0000

There is no difference between the free and paid Threatfire except for the following:

Paid has…
Automatic updates provided if opted out of ThreatFire Community
Free priority telephone support
Commercial and business use allowed

By: Mario

Mario — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 20:11:36 +0000

oops…
asked for a download and there it is : a free version ( not much different from the full one). There’s also a TrialPay for the full version.
sorry!
mario

By: Mario

Mario — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 20:00:08 +0000

Hi Ashraf,
but Threatfire is not free. It costs 30 euros, or about 40 to 45 US$. Coming from PC Tools could be a good thing, specially if they are producing software as they used to do on DOS Days.
mario