Ad-Aware is the forefather of them all among adware and spyware removal programs. Lavasoft has been providing Ad-Aware to eliminate malware and spyware since before most people knew it existed. Finding out about the Ad-Aware was the way that many people first discovered that there were such things as harmful programs that could be put on their computers without their knowledge.

This software is now 10 years old. Or rather, after constant improvements and upgrades, version 8.0 of the software is celebrating. After being in existence for ten years, how is it faring?

The reviews are somewhat mixed. Some reviewers think that Ad-Aware’s excellent reputation is merited. They note differences between the confusing free version and the more explanatory paid version. The second one is more developed and boots and scans faster.

The anniversary version is quite good and is considered to be an improvement. One downside is that Google Chrome and Apple Safari web browsers are incompatible with the TrackSweep feature. That feature wipes out your web browser history, so this is a definite minus. As well, heuristic detection or real-time registry protection facility are not available in the free version of Ad-Aware, so you must buy the Pro version to get the all bells and whistles.

Those are some of the opinions of professional reviewers, but what about the user reviews, which reflect people’s actual experience? These reviews can vary greatly. Some people will tell you that Ad-Aware is the only program that could find certain spyware on their systems and completely eliminate it. Many other users have had SpyBot or other anti-spyware software find malware that Ad-Aware missed after repeated operations. But that pretty well applies to every anti-spyware program, thus indicating that no program will find every bit of malware.

However, most of the negative reviews pertain to the free version, which is considerably different from the Pro version. The free version simply doesn’t offer sufficient protection to merit using it for many individuals. And for a few others, the software didn’t remove malware it said it could get rid of, and the tech support just wasn’t there. Nor was a refund, after everything had been tried and had failed. Recent versions of the software were found to freeze the user’s computer, forcing the user to revert to previous versions.

However, on every site where users can give 1 to 5 stars when they do their reviews, the average after hundreds of responses comes in to the 3.5 to 4 range. What this seems to imply is that while the tenth anniversary version of Ad-Aware may not be the absolute best, it’s still pretty good, and worth looking into if you’re shopping around.

Spyware removal software should be a priority to ensure the security of your computer and your personal information. The good news is you don’t even have to pay for it if you use freeware spyware remover software, which you can download from numerous websites that offer freeware spyware removal tools.

Technorati Tags: , , ,