Customer Reviews

Lavasoft Ad-Aware Plus Anti-Spyware [18 Month Subscription]

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I was unable to install the ad-ware plus. In order to install this product the lavasoft serial number/adware plus is requiered.The lavasoft confirmation system would not accept it and kept installing the free adware. I was not able to contact Lavasoft for help.
Can anybody help?

I have used the free version for the last three years and it worked great. It did the job searching for cookies, anomalies, etc., then deleting them. This new product is something else. It identifies the junk items but does not delete them. Yes, I have read the manual, gone on-line, etc. It was a waste of money. Nothing on Amazon, it is the product itself.

I had been using their free version for several years. Even though I uninstalled the free version, the Plus edition CD gave me nothing but trouble. Obviously, when you uninstall the prior version, pieces of it remain in the registry & I guess, elsewhere! For weeks, I went back and forth with them via email, and they finally told me that their new version was coming out, and to download it from their website. After uninstalling it again (for about the 7th time), I downloaded it from their site. This time, it installed, but still took me a couple of days to work out bugs. For example, you boot up, and find that the way you configured it disappeard, and it had to be reset a couple of different times. Next, the "Adwatch" was crazy. Once you activate it, you would get one alert after the other...at one point it said I had over 5,000 alerts!..I deactivated it, and will not dream of using it again. I don't use it on startup, and manually run scans at least once a week. I found that it conflicted with my Anti-Virus/Firewall/other Security configurations. I actually think their free version is better.

Ad-Aware is the most widely used and generally highest rated spyware removal product on the market. Having used Ad-Aware for several years and tried many competitors, such as Skybot Search and Destroy, I agree. Computers users who have not used this or similar products are always shocked by how many "spyware" cookies and tracers Ad-Aware finds on their drives that all of the leading anti-virus products overlook. It is an absolutely essential product for anyone who enjoys visiting websites with lots of downloadable images, music, and video files if they want to keep their computer healthy.

The product comes in a Free version (available from the Lavasoft website), this version called "Plus", and two versions called "Pro" and "Enterprise 2.0" suitable for network drive scanning and process monitoring.

The reason to buy "Plus" version over using the Free version is to get the automatic scheduler, full customizing options, and the ability to scan external drives.

(This version of "Plus" sold by Amazon.com includes an 18-month license vs. a 12-month, 24-month, or 36-month license if purchased on-line directly from Lavasoft. The cost of this packaged version is a better buy by a tiny margin.)

In my opinion, "Ad-Aware SE," which is no longer available or supported, was a superior product to "Plus." The new "Plus" version has been beefed-up and is so aggressive that it now removes many (not all) log-ins to websites that I frequent. (Logging-in repeatedly after Ad-Aware Plus scans is a nuisance.) It also takes about three-times longer to complete a scan. (Smart Scans that used to be complete in 10 minutes now take 30 minutes, and full scans which took 45 minutes take up to two hours - this is on computer with about 300GB of data stored on a 7200 RPM drive running 4GB of RAM.) It also is constantly doing updates in the background, which I don't notice and don't seem to interfere with anything, but I wish only ran on command as in the past. - - Based on these changes, I am tempted to give this new version of Ad-Aware a much lower rating than four stars, however no other product I know about is superior to it.

The first time you use Ad-Aware 2007, even with the faster "Smart Scan," the scan may take over one hour or more to complete. Subsequent Smart Scans run about 75% faster, but still take more than 20 minutes on my computer.

A tip: Before you scan, ALWAYS go to "Internet Options" under "Tools" (for IE7), then to "Browsing History" and "Delete" your "Temporary Internet Files." This step will reduce scan time by several minutes.

In summary, Ad-Aware 2007 Plus is an esstential product for computer health; highly recommended, but not without caveats.

I use a number of security products and Ad-aware consistanly finds a large number of malware that the the others don't.

This product does not work for Windows Vista. I received this product and was very disappointed to find that it did not work on my Operating System. Would probably be great for XP, but I have Vista.

The name is right ad aware......becasue it gives you more of them and crashes your unreliable, buggy Windows OS easily.