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- Quick specs
- Price: Free to try (Real time protection disabled)
- Operating system: Windows 98/Me/2000/XP/NT
- Date added: May 27, 2005
- Total Downloads: 352,907,309
- Downloads last week: 283,947
- Product Ranking: #2 in Spyware Removers
- See full specifications
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A newer version of Ad-Aware SE Personal Edition is available.
- CNET editors' rating: stars
- Average user rating: stars out of 11785 votes
See all user reviews
CNET editors' review
Reviewed by: CNET Staff on November 08, 2008
Read a CNET review of the full version of Lavasoft Ad-Aware.
One of the first applications built to find and remove adware and spyware, Ad-Aware SE Personal Edition's excellent reputation is well justified. The sky-blue, skinnable interface features five buttons. The first two, Status and Scan, lead to the core function of the application. These buttons initiate a scan of your files for adware components. After scanning is complete, the program presents a summary of results, followed by a list from which you select exactly which components to remove. Right-clicking an individual entry gives some information about the piece of suspected adware, though we would like more details.
Ad-Aware SE can alert you to more malignant forms of malware by separating items into critical and negligible categories. The third button, Ad-Watch, is nonfunctional in the Standard version. The fourth button, Plug-ins, shows you which Ad-Aware plug-ins are installed. The fifth leads to the help files.Ad-Aware SE does an excellent job of quickly finding and removing most adware and spyware components, although you will have to restart and rescan for a seriously infected machine. We were pleased to see an auto-update feature included with the program, keeping Ad-Aware up-to-date with the latest adware components. Ad-Aware SE should be part of your arsenal for keeping your machine free of adware and spyware components.
Watch the CNET video review of Ad-Aware SE Personal Edition:
Publisher's description
From Lavasoft:With the ability to scan your RAM, Registry, hard drives, and external storage devices for known data-mining, advertising, and tracking components, Ad-Aware SE easily can clean your system, allowing you to maintain a higher degree of privacy while you surf the Web. Ad-Aware SE Personal Edition boasts a number of improvements. Extended memory scanning now scans all modules loaded by a process. Scanning uses the all- new CSI (Code Sequence Identification) technology to identify new and unknown variants of known targets. Extended Registry scanning now scans Registry branches of multiple-user accounts and performs additional smart checks to detect dynamically created references. Scanning speed is noticeably faster, and this version offers an Extended Scanning mode for known and unknown/possible browser hijackers. New in version 1.06: Disk-scan is approximately 30 percent faster. CSI scan is now more efficient. Added "Scan for low-risk threats" option, to scan for targets with low TAC index. Ad-Watch CSI engine performance highly improved; using less CPU and Memory as well as having a smaller footprint. GUI adapted to use the new TAC.
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User reviews of Ad-Aware SE Personal Edition 1.06
- All versions: 3.8 starsout of 11785 votes
- 5 stars
- 4 stars
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- 1 stars
- Current version: 4.4 starsout of 1922 votes
- 5 stars
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- My rating: 0 stars Write review
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5 stars
213 out of 277 people found this review helpful
Version: Ad-Aware SE Personal Edition 1.06
"Superior."
Pros: Ad-Aware is superior to many "clones" out there. The latest version has many improvements such as; using less memory making the scans much faster than before. The results are more in detail to what was found with an improved gui. I like Ad-aware alot, It's catches alot of things but I always recommend using Spywareblaster, Spybot Search & Destroy, Hijackthis,Winpatrol and using and an Alternative browser along with common sence for an extra layer of security. Ever since using all of these I have had few or no spyware and adware ever since. Highly recommended.
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5 stars
109 out of 143 people found this review helpful
Version: Ad-Aware SE Personal Edition 1.06
"Cleans your computer of everything!!"
Pros: This antispy scans every nook and cranny of your PC for spyware. It found 32 critical items that my Yahoo spyware didnt find. Once these items were deleted, my computer ran like non other.
-It has a full scan and a quick smart scan for your choice of option. Also with a cusotm options scan and a scan for ADS on a certain volume.
-Also an option to turn off and on searches negligible and low-risk threats for faster scans.
-Updates are downloaded and installed very fast. New updates come at a reasonable pace.
This antispy should definitely be settled nicel in your hard drive.
Cons: Nothing yet, except is says there's no limitations in the free version, but the Ad-Watch is disabled.
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5 stars
83 out of 108 people found this review helpful
Version: Ad-Aware SE Personal Edition 1.06
"Awsome Free Weapon against both Spyware and Adware!"
Pros: Since both Spyware Doctor and Webroot Spysweeper are paid versions, and Spybot has been stuck with its old and boring interface and slow scanning the only perfect option left is Adware. It always has more search results then its compatriots. Microsoft Antipyware is also no match for adaware even though its free too. Adaware has been in business for long enough now and it has perfected the art of detecting and removing Spyware and Adware both. I am using it with Bazooka Adware and Spyware detector, it is the perfect combination. Bazooka scans in less then two seconds and i use it weekly, if it detects something then i use Adaware. I scan with Adaware every month. (SAVES TIME)
Cons: Sometimes gets stuck while scanning, but it gets back to normal while its still scanning...
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5 stars
32 out of 41 people found this review helpful
Version: Ad-Aware SE Personal Edition 1.06
"Ad-Aware SE Personal makes Spyware and Adware removal a breeze!"
Pros: Ad-Aware SE Personal gives the operator not only great spyware removal and adware removal tools, but also has a user-friendly interface. The options of removing what the user deems necessary and what the software recommends removing are an added plus to this software. Also, the fantastic TAC or "Threat Assesment Chart" explains how harmful the spyware may be, it's behavior and, a one(not much a threat) to a ten(extremely harmful) rating of the spyware or adware. Ad-Aware SE Personal is the best of its kind!
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5 stars
14 out of 15 people found this review helpful
Version: Ad-Aware SE Personal Edition 1.06
"Great product, though not extensive scan."
Pros: Free and easy to use product, does remove spyware.
Cons: Not all of them though.
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5 stars
33 out of 44 people found this review helpful
Version: Ad-Aware SE Personal Edition 1.06
"Awesome Spyware Killer!"
Pros: Removes a ton of spyware I never knew I had, works fast, easy to use, FREE!
Cons: None
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5 stars
13 out of 14 people found this review helpful
Version: Ad-Aware SE Personal Edition 1.06
"One of the few FREE must-haves"
Pros: First of all it's FREE. It is also included in the Google free collection of essential software (Google Pack) and this says a lot about this product's quality!
Lightning fast: the smart system scan takes just a few minutes on my computer. Extremely precise: never missed any malware on my system for 2 years now. The Internet Update function works perfect, this way AdAware is up-to-date with the most recent spyware and adware.
Fair enough with the system resources, it runs smoothly even on my old 450MHz Compaq.
Way better than MS Windows Defender and works perfect with Spybot Search&Destroy.
Cons: AdWatch is not free
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5 stars
56 out of 78 people found this review helpful
Version: Ad-Aware SE Personal Edition 1.06
"Simply the best !!"
Pros: Ad Aware SE is the best spware scanning software. It offers great scanning features and superb detection of spyware. The definitions are updated regularly and are a great way to solve new threats. If the like it very much, I suggest you go for the professional version of the softrware.
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5 stars
10 out of 11 people found this review helpful
Version: Ad-Aware SE Personal Edition 1.06
"Excellent freeware"
Pros: This is a wonderful piece of software. It does exactly what it says that it will do, which is a lot.
Cons: It is not perfect, but it is the best of the Malware Fighters, free or paid.
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1 stars
6 out of 6 people found this review helpful
Version: Ad-Aware SE Personal Edition 1.06
"VIRUS IN DOWNLOAD FILE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Pros: I have used different versions of AdAware for several years, and it has been a great program. Detection and removal has been spectacular, and the interface is very easy to use.
Cons: Today I was performing a system scan, and my real-time virus protection found a virus in the AdAware application. I uninstalled AdAware, and tried re-downloading from the developer's web site and also from this site. After both re-installations, the same virus warning appeared. DO NOT USE THIS APPLICATION UNLESS YOU WANT A VIRUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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