Customer Reviews

Ad-Aware Plus With Anti-Virus

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Ad-Aware was once the #1 free anti-malware program to use. People would always recommend using this and "Spy Bot Search and Destroy". However, after a while, the programs kept getting bigger in megabytes with each version, but also was declining from keeping up to date with the latest malware and other things that effect your internet usage.

People may still recommend these two programs to you, but what they are unaware of is that Ad-Aware is just not like it used to be. As more variations of things that infect your computer came, the more your chances of Adware detecting the problem decreased. I found myself being infected, even using both Adware, and Spybot, with AVG, things where getting through and infecting my computer, yet none of these programs could detect a thing. Your only options where to either figure out what was causing the problem, and google it, in hopes somewhere it had been discussed how to remove the problem, or you could sit back for months at time before Ad-Aware finally downloaded an update that searches for the file that is giving you problems... that is, unless of coarse you had a virus that would not even allow you to get on the net, or at least search the net... but your best option, look for a better program.

Ad-aware has been a program I am sad to see go, as it did used to once be a great program that was up-to-date and cleaned your computer well of the nasty little things that can get in there. But it's also been one of those programs that has just constantly gone up and down with it's updates; sometimes it was good, sometimes it was useless, but for today's usage, you need something that is well maintained and not just filled with "give us money" junk all over it.

Updating from the free version of Ad-Aware to the pay version makes no difference. At this point in time, I highly recommend "MalwareBytes' Anti-Malware" program. You only need the free version, and it was able to detect about 300 or more files the first time I used it, and that IS 300 or more files that SpyBot and Ad-Aware where not detecting, so if you do the math, thats why I recommend that program over Ad-Aware or the others at this point in time.

p.s: seeing as how there is no listing for spy-bot S&D; I no longer recommend that program due to it being rather unstable now. When it was a simple little program in it's early days, it was great. Then they added a whole heap of annoying little bits and peaces that may have sounded like a good thing to have, like real time protection and what not, but it also meant the program caused your computer to start up slower, and would annoy you with pop-ups like "spybot blocked this element, pat me on the back for it". It would also slow down internet speeds and again, in the end, malicious files broke through, and installed something that rendered SpyBot useless. The day I took off both Adaware and Spybot, and replaced it with Malware Bytes program, my computers start up time and how long it took for my internet browser to display the 1st time after booting increased a heck of a lot.

Based upon my experience with the Free version, I would not purchase this due to memory issues and excessive temp file generation.

There is the memory issue. Every time I run it, I have to disable the AAWService.exe file afterwards in the computer's services. Otherwise Ad aware will take up to 120K of memory running in the background.

Then there is the excessive temp files. Every few days, my junk file cleaning software would churn for over 30 minutes deleting all the temp files (beginning with AdA). This clogged up my computer with up to 125,000 temp files in a week. I have learned that this due to a new feature--the e-mail scanner.

Lavasoft needs to fix its software!!!

Waste of money, does not work and ends up screwing up your computers performance. Funny thing was kaspersky, Norton & One Care identified this a malware on my pc.


AVOID!

I have been a fan of the free LavaSoft Ad-Aware for years. When I bought my new laptop I knew that they also had virus protection as well as the spyware protection so this is the product I decided to buy. It came with 18 months and 3 licenses. So far so good.