Ad-Aware 11 Released

You lucky people!

http://www.lavasoft.com/products/ad_aware.php

Enjoy!

Andy

 

Is the free version still based on VIPRE? Also, does it force uninstall of MBAM?

thanks

EDIT - looks like the free version has Bitdefender but requires a toolbar install. Does anyone know if the toolbar can be either disabled or removed?

 

I would have given this a try if web protection was available in free version. When many of your competitors have web protection in free version I dont see any reason why people will change from their existing product to AdAware considering its a fairly new product in AV market. Nevertheless the interface and reviews looks good.

 

The comparison chart of the different editions show the free with safe browsing.

http://www.lavasoft.com/products/ad_aware.php

 

This is from official Lavasoft FB page:

if Ad-Aware isn't allowing you to install in "compatible" mode this is because it has determined that having both will cause severe system issues, maybe even a system crash. The only way around that unfortunately is to uninstall Malwarebytes and install Ad-Aware. Please note that if you do that, you will not be able to put Malwarebytes back if Ad-Aware is still present on the machine

 

I will keep Malwarebytes.

 

@ LS Andy,
=
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=2289611&postcount=68

 

I was going to install it and see what toolbars, etc. it might try to add so I could advise users not to install them, but I couldn't even install it as it said I had incompatible software, while it didn't say what that was. If it's my on-demand Malwarebytes, that's pretty sad. Hope they fix this.

 

In my opinion, in comparison to other Free AVs, Ad-Aware is very limited in what it provides for you, in terms of features.

Plus, memory consumption is higher as well, in comparison to other Free AVs.

However, I think the interface is quite nice, simple and clean.

 

Is that with version 11 or a previous one, because I think Vipre was what was causing it in the past, and Softpedia's review found it quite light, and that was the Total Security version.

I am disappointed by the lack of features though, but if it uses Bitdefender's engine, I'm sure the detection makes up for it.

 

In terms of consumption, I'm talking about spikes, They're a little too high for my liking (Yes, version 11)

Others may find that less of a problem, but I'm quite picky

 

Ad-Aware is the best: http://www.lavasoft.com/products/compare.php

Is it still necessary to register the "free" version?

 

Yep, unfortunately

 

In my opinion, a fully compatible security solution intelligently and thoughtfully designed with safely working in combination with other security software seamlessly, is worthy of both audience and reasonable marketing returns.

 

Me too but will install them side by side just to see how accurate Andy market BS tests are...

Uses VT MIS search to download known malware detected by MalwareBytes but not BitDefender....Ohnoes Adaware sux0r when tested against my samples. Malwarebytes kills them all lol 100% Yeah MBAM is king and Adaware just sucks (8% detection rate). 8% prolly coz the VT reports base on last scan and a few defs were pushed since then or else Adaware has it owns DB parsed

Wonders if anyone wants to pay me for such a BS test...Afterall Andy just got paid for his work but health advisory to anyone all tests outcomes can be manipulated especially when it is the vendor doing it themselves(afterall they get to pick the samples first and they never come anywhere but first in their own tests, at least in the ones they publish).

Will give them A++ in BS marketing rates tho

 

Ah - fair point. Let me clear this up. There were two very different test sets, one under fairly relaxed conditions, the other replicating VB/AV-Test.org/etc tests.

Test 1
The "for fun" test results were tucked away on a minor blog on lavasoft.com, not on the front page. That test was pretty basic - 50k samples were gathered during the course of one day and then thrown at the two products just to see what happened. I chose MBAM Pro because, well, why not? Mischief, probably.

Some of MBAM's users (before you go berserk, I said "some"!) don't appreciate anything other than unwavering, unquestioning loyalty towards it. I suppose I wanted to see how people like that would react to data that might make them question this mind-set. No more, no less. It was just a one-off, random event, but I wasn't overwhelmed by MBAM's performance in that particular test. I suppose I could do more thorough and repeated tests if there's any interest.

I should say that I respect anyone who contributes to fighting malware, so any serious tests would be "for science", not cheap shots to discredit anyone.

Test 2
These were more extensive, conducted repeatedly (not just one-off tests) in such a way as to replicate how AV-Test/Virus Bulletin/etc test. They were continually carried out over several weeks prior to release. Primarily, they were intended to be sanity checks for the various tech teams at Lavasoft. However, marketing people got wind of them and.. well. Marketing. I love them really.

The stuff posted on the front page referenced "Test 2" and was from the last and most recent test but all the tests conducted over the weeks prior to release showed broadly the same results.

Even though I can stand behind these tests & the results (I conducted them) since they're "in-house", the only people they really satisfy are Lavasoft's tech staff i.e. people like me. I'm confident about Ad-Aware's ability to protect users, but, I did the tests and combed through the results. I'd only be fooling myself and my colleagues by being anything other than impartial. I wasn't thinking about how to use the data for marketing purposes - I had to satisfy myself.

There were reservations about making any of our in house tests public because they were conducted by Lavasoft on its own product (the previous, not unreasonable post is a good example of the kind of response we expected) but, the consensus from people at Lavasoft much smarter than me was "why not?". Readers could take or leave the results, but internally, we were convinced we have something good to offer.

I expect people might be happier when they see third-party testing results (which we expect will mirror our own), so we're going to continue doing Virus Bulletin tests, re-submit Ad-Aware to AV-Testing and possibly throw our hat in the ring when AV-Comparatives solicit for particpants for their year long tests around December time. When we get these results, we'll be sure to share them with you, but until then I would invite you to at least check Ad-Aware out. It's pretty good, but, I would say that.

Andy
Lavasoft Malware Lab

 

Ok Andy

If it was not a cheap shot then maybe comparing apples to apples(and not apples to oranges) would have got less of a reaction.

1) MBAM does not market itself as a stand alone solution unlike yourself.
Yet you choose to use them as a comparison as well as SAS.

2) Why did you not compare yourself to other solutions that are using the BitDefender engine\DB ? or others that market as a full solution say kaspersky for example ?

Man your sales and market share most be shrinking if you have to install a toolbar or drop down to this level of marketing to make $'s over there...oh just remembered the toolbar has been pushed for sometime now.

Kind of ironic to think Adaware was born because of toolbars and Adwares that the AV's sucked at removing now goes full circle and installs one itself.
The defence they help the user really dont cut it as that is what all toolbar vendors say to defend their data harvesting antics.

Once you guys stood as the leading light for looking out for the privacy and security of internet users.

Guess you guys just lost your way

 

Hello,

It really wasn't intended to be a cheap shot (and I don't think it was) but you can only take my word for it. Strong reactions are fine - better than no reaction. Anyway, Ad-Aware Free can be installed in a "second line of defense" capacity like MBAM and SAS. If this is new information, then we need to do a better job getting that message across. Having said that, hopefully this new info helps level the playing field.

I can do that if enough people would find it useful. Probably best if I tested using a methodology people agree on. Let me know what test methodology/<insert other request here> you'd like to see.

I guess all I can say is that I work for a company that makes an anti-malware application and we'd be happy if you think it's worth using. If you choose not to use it, I'll be just as happy as long as you make sure you use one that offers good protection. I just came by to say that Ad-Aware 11 has been released so try it out if you feel inclined. Cheers and trevlig kväll, allihopa!

Andy
Lavasoft Malware Lab

 

Do you have the test results available anywhere besides these in-house / marketing related summaries?

 

Ad-Aware is only number 1 in their in-house-tests. Very interesting!

 

Sure - here's the results from one of the tests. Please don't request more - they were really never intended for this kind of stuff. They were just for me and my team's sanity.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/uig4zmy8ww56kuu/Tests.7z

It's quite dry reading; just lists of MD5s and stuff, but, have at it. You can probably use the Virus Total API to verify the samples and URLs if you have time (at 4 checks per minute, its going to take a while)

If we do talk about internal test stuff in public in future, I guess we should keep in mind that people will want the actual data - something I hadn't accounted for when originally doing the tests. That being the case, I don't know what format/data would be most useful. Suggestions welcome.

Andy
Lavasoft Malware Lab

 

Hello,

This is getting out of control. I was just passing to say hello and let people know AA 11 was out.

With the greatest respect, in case you missed it in my long and rambling post, I previously said, regarding in house testing:

OK, it's well past the end of the work day here in Sweden. Good evening, all!

Andy
Lavasoft Malware Lab

 

I see, thank you Andy.

 

The toolbar is not there to make money, and installation is optional.

It is not adware, and it's not the only antivirus to install a toolbar.

 

Wow! Tough crowd.