Lavasoft Ad-Aware 2007 Lavasoft is one of the earliest anti-spyware company and perhaps one of the most popular anti-spyware. Although some anti-spyware might perform better, is is still useful and effective as an anti-spyware product. The free edition is for personal use and some important features such as real-time protection are disabled.

Support: Actually, the support is bad. The would hardly answer your e-mail. However, besides e-mail support, forum is also provided. So, in case you got technical problem, it might be a good idea to check out the previous thread in forum.

 

Effectiveness: Detect and remove spyware, adware, trojan, tracking cookie, worm, dialer, keylogger, hijackers and rootkits. However, unlike some anti-spyware product, the rootkit detector is not available. Since this company had been in the industry for years now, no doubt that the number of spyware definition is high.

 

Guard your browser, startup objects and registry: For free edition, this feature is not available. For Ad-aware plus, RegShield feature will protect your registry from being hijacked. This include your browser settings, startup programs, windows security restriction and policies, and session manager. For me, this one is very important - if

your anti-virus program doesn't guard your registry, then you better find an anti-spyware that does. The spyware is getting smarter than before; by guarding your registry, you'll avoid future attack from hijacker.

 

Ad-watch will guard malicious apps - Once again, this feature is disable for free edition. Ad-watch will block malicious process, block malicious cookies, lock executable file association.

 

Ease of use, however, not so friendly interface - Just like the previous version, AdAware is easy to use, with blue sky interface. It has several tabs, easy to navigate and access each function. However, for 2007 the color changes after a few days. When you first install the free edition, the interface, by default is blue. However, after a few days, the color turns red. I bet this program want the user to upgrade to PLUS or PRO, then the interface will be neat again.

 

 

Blue, neat interface turns red. This is new unfriendly feature in Ad-Aware 2007.

Certification/Awards - This software, is no doubt, not a rogue anti-spyware. Far from it. It is given 4 stars by CNet download.com editor. Certified by Softpedia as no spyware, no adware and no virus.   Additional features - Customizable scan (PLUS or PRO), Automatic threat Updates

  (PLUS or PRO), guard your borwser with host file editor (PLUS or PRO), block malicious

cookies (PLUS or PRO), internet tracker cleanup.

 

Other user's comment - When I log on to CNET download.com, most users give this comment: Works perfectly on Windows XP but creates problem with Windows Vista. When I check the help file myself, no wonder why - this program is actually not yet Vista ready.

 

Overall rating : For free edition, I can give at most 3/5. While for PLUS and PRO, 4/5. Why? Because the support is bad, and some important features is limited in free edition. For more, Ashampoo antispyware performs better in trial version that Lavasoft AdAware Free. 

 

System requirement:

Processor: P600
RAM: Operating system + minimum 50 MB (100 MB recommended)
Hard Disk: 50 MB free space recommended

Windows XP (Home, Pro)
Windows Server 2003
Windows 2000 (Pro and Server)

 

Download here (ad-watch is not available for personal edition)