Lavasoft Ad-Aware 2009 – Free

This post was written by admin on November 5, 2009
Posted Under: Antimalware, Free Program, PC Security

Ad-Aware 2009 is the latest pc security program from Lavasoft. They state that it is an anti-malware, anti-spyware and anti-rootkit program which offers limited realtime protection against malicious downloads and rootkit detection is present, but behavior-based heuristics and real-time registry protection is excluded in the free version.

The installation is smooth and the interface is simple and not cluttered and remains a very popular choice with its users. From the main interface users can check for updates, although the program does have an auto-update feature.

Users need to switch to ‘Advanced Mode’ to enable various settings. Under Updates, Software, definition and information updates are pre-ticked. There is also the option to join the ‘Threatwork Alliance’ and for those using a proxy server, simply click the button and enter the details.

Under the Profiles Scans most users will be quite happy to leave the default settings as they are. Under Ad-Watch Live Processes protection is pre-ticked, Registry and Network protection is not available in the free version, nor are Detection Layers. Users can change the level of alerts they receive, but again, most will be happy with the default settings.

Under Customize, users can add Ad-Aware to the explorer right click context menu and also select or change their language as well as changing the skin, although to enable this the program needs to be closed and restarted.

Back to the main interface and Extras allows users clear their browsing history with one click. Ad-Watch Live offers realtime protection and it states that it “actively blocks malicious processes that try to start on your system”. I had a problem with this, after several reboots, uninstalling and re-installing it still would not work on 3 different machines, so I had to ignore this.

So, I put this to the test and downloaded some fresh malware and I also installed some of the dodgy stuff that users come across. There were no warning popups from Ad-Aware that there was anything malicious about these as the Ad-Watch Live would not function.

I carried out a Full Scan and Ad-Aware found 6 objects and removed them easily, however, a follow up scan with Malwarebytes Anti-Malware which found 18 objects, including Vundo, which were removed and I also activated Microsoft Security Essentials and performed a Custom Scan of the C: Drive with which found 4 further objects, which were swiftly removed.

So, despite its new detection methods it didn’t work for me as it allowed the installation and execution of malware which such programs are designed to either stop or remove. In this case it did remove 6 items but did not remove all infections.

In January 2009 I wrote about the Ad-Aware Anniversary Edition and was less than impressed with that, and in all honesty, other programs perform better.

As with all security programs, it is down to user choice and what the user is happy and comfortable using, but for me this is a non-starter.

Click here to download Lavasoft Ad-Aware 2009

Systems Supported:
Windows 7 32 & 64-bit, Windows Vista 32 & 64bit, Windows XP 32bit, Windows 2000 Pro

Languages:
English, French, German, Japanese, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Italian, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish