Category Archives: PC Security

Lavasoft Ad-Aware Pro Review

What began as anti-spyware has grown into a sizable suite that includes comprehensive malware protection; this version of Ad-Aware Internet Security Pro includes antivirus, network protection, and rootkit removal. Lavasoft also offers a free version of the software, Ad-Aware Free Internet Security, which is for home users only; and a more full-featured new suite, Ad-Aware Total Security.

Features

Produced by Lavasoft, a renowned pioneer in the anti-spyware industry, Ad-Aware Pro Security exhibits a consistent focus on fighting off the cyber threats whose aim is to compromise user privacy in one way or another. For attaining the purpose of keeping your most sensitive data intact, this product accommodates real-time protection, secure online banking and shopping, email protection, identity theft countermeasures, advanced two-way firewall, removable media scanning, as well as safe networking and browsing – the benefits of such blend are obvious, considering the prevalent infections at large and their common distribution tactics. In order to secure the web-surfing and online search facets of the regular user activity, the solution integrates a browser toolbar for Internet Explorer and Firefox, checking the visited URLs against the database of unsafe and phishing websites, and allowing quick erasure of private data derivable from the temporary Internet files, cookies, history, passwords, etc.

Pros:
A real solid security software, made in Sweden. Lavasoft`s Ad-Aware doesn’t slow your PC down at all, like the worst of them all AVG,Panda, and also Avast in some amount. Lavasoft`s Ad-Aware is the oldest antispyware program and with 367,254,662 total downloads on a competitors site, speaks for it own.

Cons:
Actually none. But to be picky it takes a bit to load.

Results

While delivering good protection from widespread and prevalent malware, Lavasoft Ad-Aware Pro Security may fail to spot 0-day infections and completely clean a computer system after infestation. According to the latest data from AV-TEST, the product’s protection score amounted to 3.5/6.0, missing the most on defense against zero-days (90% result, while industry average is 92%). When it comes to repair, the score is 4.0/6.0 due to weak results on remediation of critical system modifications after contamination (44%, with industry average amounting to 60%). During our test we ran into one false positive on a legitimate website, which was eventually bypassed through disabling the “Shop & Bank Safely Online” feature. Full system scan launched on our lab machine detected 1 Trojan (high severity level) and 16 tracking cookies (low severity level); all were moved to quarantine and successfully deleted afterwards. To sum it up, as long as you’re dealing with prevalent threats, Lavasoft does its job well. Once new uncatalogued malware comes into play, you might be in trouble. Consequently, Ad-Aware Pro Security is a pretty good pick for basic protection.

Bottom Line

Is it worth paying $29.95 for Ad-Aware Internet Security Pro, when there are many free anti-spyware and antivirus programs out there, including the free version of Ad-Aware? The Free version is much the same as the Pro, except that it doesn’t include integrated download protection, rootkit removal, or real-time protection. Real-time protection is vital in security software, so even home users would do well either to pay for the Pro version or to get the Free version and supplement it with any of the many free pieces of security software that offer real-time protection, such as Microsoft Security Essentials, Avira AntiVir Personal, or Avast! Home Edition.

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