- Quick specs
- Price: Free
- Operating system: Windows 95, Windows 2000, Windows NT, Windows 98
- Date added: November 20, 2000
- Total Downloads: 320,544,093
- Downloads last week: 825,481
- See full specifications
A newer version of Ad-aware is available.
(Download doesn't provide access to previous versions of this program.)
- CNET editors' rating: stars
- Average user rating: stars out of 11226 votes
See all user reviews
CNET editors' review
Reviewed by: CNET Staff
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:
Publisher's description
From Lavasoft :Ad-aware scans your memory, registry, and hard drives for software components from Adware, Alexa, Aureate (1.0, 2.0, and 3.0), Comet Cursor (1.0 and 2.0), Cydoor, Doubleclick, DSSAgent, Flyswat, Gator, TimeSink (1.0 and 2.0), Web3000, and Webhancer. Ad-aware then displays a list of detected spyware files and allows you to selectively remove them from your system. Click here to see a screen shot.
This update supports command-line parameters, automized scanning, auto-start with Windows, detailed log files, an uninstaller, expanded detection, and a help file.
Note: Some advertisement-supported software may not work after the ad-monitoring components have been removed. If you run Ad-aware under Windows NT/2000, you will need to log in with administrator privileges.
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User reviews of Ad-aware 4.02
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