Adaware Standard is free right?

Hi guys,

I have a student friend who has got spyware on her pc but can't afford to pay for a programme to deal with it. I recommended Adaware but she claims that although it found 20 bugs, it dealt with only 10 of them and to deal with the rest she would have to purchase the full programme. I think maybe she downloaded Adaware Pro by mistake, but can anyone confirm here whether Adaware Standard is free or not?

Also, how effective is it? I use PestPatrol and on my advice she ran the free pestPatrol scan and it turned up 160 pests as opposed to the 20 found by Adaware. Big difference! What's up with that? Obviously a commercial product will be more powerful but still the discrepancy is startling.

Thanks in adavance for any help.

Regards
Ashak

 

Ad-Aware is free indeed.

You might want to give a try to SPYBOT(freeware
and very good software)

http://www.security.kolla.de

 

Hi Ashak,

I don't know what your friend downloaded, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't AdAware. To download the Plus or Pro versions you need a password, which you receive after purchasing it.
The free version will remove everything it finds (which is exactly the same as the Plus or Pro versions).
Please ask your friend to follow this link: http://www.lavasoftusa.com/support/download/

The difference with PestPatrol could be explainable, but I think it's better to check if she really has AdAware (build 6.181) and updated it.

Regards,

Pieter

 

Thanks Claire and Pieter for your response. I just downloaded Adaware Standard myself on a seperate pc and yup, it's free alright. Also turned up 200 bugs so looks like it's not too bad at identifying after all. I don't know what she downloaded but I'll advise her again.

I will check out the SpyBOT as well, there's probably quite a bit of info on this site, I'll have a browse.

Thanks again.

Ashak

 

Hello,Ashak

Yes as you can see it is free now there is some sites
doing this i know one more user that downloaded
a pro Ver & it did some bad things to there puter

so please have your friend remove it right away
& i would have them do a Virus/Trojan scan as soon
as they have the time also make sure to tell your

friend to update the Reffile # to this 222 26.09.2003

Good luck

 

I downloaded SpyBOT on my own pc and it found 10 problems that PestPatrol missed. Looks like a very efficient programme for free. Thanks Claire!

I will pass on the information to my friend I'm sure she'll be thrilled, it can't be fun having spyware lurking on your computer and not being able to do anything about it.

Cheers
Ashak

 

Hey Ashak,

I am glad you like Spybot.
Just a tip.I don't use the immunize section but spywareblaster instead(but it's up to you to decide)

 

Claire, I have PestPatrol which prevents spyware cookies from landing on my hard drive and I've already enabled the Immunize option on SpyBot. Am I fairly well covered or is it still worth getting the Spyware Blaster?

I'll have a browse through the dedicated forum as well but thanks for any help. Weird. I came for advice on behalf of somebody else and ended up getting new software for myself

 

If you choose to enable"immunize" it's all right.
SpywareBlaster just protect from more nasties

Have a lot of pleasure with Spybot.You can register at Kolla's site to receive a free email notification for updates if you want

Have a nice week end

 

Thanks, I will look into it, seems like a very worthwhile addition. You have a nice weekend too

 

Pieter you were right, she'd downloaded registry cleaner by mistake, don't ask me how I still haven't figured it myself. Anyway, she did succesfully download Adaware and SpyBot and seems happy enough with the results so well done guys

I use C-NET to guage user opinions on products like SpyBot and noticed a lot of complaints about vital registries being removed. I didn't get any problems however and I noticed that only bugs marked in red show up after a scan on my programme. Is that because the default settings have changed to accomodate newbies who might have been deleting stuff without knowing what they were doing?

 

Hi Ashak,

Yes, Spybot has two modes: Advanced and Easy.
In the Easy mode only the Spyware (RED) show up.
Most of the problems were caused by people having the items in BLACK fixed or using beta-updates.

Regards,

Pieter

 

1) Pest patrol is famous for false alarms

2) Pest patrol detects more then just spyware. It looks for hacking tools, password crackers, txt files on how to hack, sniffers etc. It even looks for p2p programs

PP is okay if you are a system admin trying to enforce rules for your network. Not so useful for a home-user.

 

Thanks Pieter, I was wondering what everybody was complaining about, obviously SpyBot is set to easy mode by default then.

Jay, I bought PP last year at the time it was highly recommended here. I think Adaware or SpyBot can probably do a decent job in most cases, you are right.