Ad-aware Standard Edition

It is with great pleasure that we make our popular anti-trackware utility available to the public. We know that you have waited a long time for this release and now it has finally arrived! We could have spent the last few months constantly replying to some of our more vocal critics, but instead chose to answer their challenge by providing our users with the best combination of privacy solutions available. The same effort and craftsmanship that we put into our registered versions has been put into our freeware offering.

Contrary to some reports and rumors that would have you believe we had abandoned Ad-aware or were releasing beta software, we have poured our hearts, souls and bodies into this project. We encourage you to try our software and compare it to what others are offering (sometimes at outrageous prices) for FREE! Then you will understand how far ahead of the rest of the industry our products are and why you can’t be without Ad-aware in your personal privacy arsenal.

We will be updating our site as soon as possible with our mirror’s links, but until they are ready you can get a copy from the following (this list will also be updated):

http://www.majorgeeks.com/article.php?sid=506&cat=31

http://files.lavasoft.us/aaw6.exe

more URL's here: http://www.lavasoftsupport.com/index.php?s=f064390c36b0dd9b9926858b6d84094b&act=ST&f=1&t=3222&st=0&#entry18622

 

The following response to the AdAware advertisement above is my opinion and my personal views only. They do not necessarily reflect the views of Wilders.org or the Wilders Forums in any way.

No, Marianna, you could have spent the last few months supporting the current version the best you could. How come other software developers can seamlessly move from Version X.7 to Y.0 without spending months in R&D hibernation for their new version while ignoring the old?

If your local telephone or cable company were going to upgrade their infrastructure and just shut down for a few months leaving you without service - how excited would you be when they return claiming they are better than ever?

The above would never happen because most companies understand their obligation to current users of their product while they work on the upgrade in the trenches or in the lab.

Reading your above post there's not even a, "Thank you for your patience." Maybe because you knew that had run out months ago for most AdAware users. No doubt there will be many downloads. Many out of mere curiosity. And I'm sorry for being so rough, Marianna, but I take security seriously, and honestly -- what Lavasoft did was inexcusable.

There is software now that serves the purpose very well and do it without disappearing the way Lavasoft would just vanish. We all remember: website there on Monday - gone on Tuesday....and Wednesday....and Thursday.....Like the book, "Where's Waldo?".....it was where's Lavasoft? Can anyone find an AdAware download? The site would (maybe) return on Friday with no explanation. And that was BEFORE the months long abondonment of the product. Customer service was abysmal. Management was rude, petty, arrogant and paranoid. Forums were censored. All in all, it was a sorry performance by a business that was run without the most basic common business sense. Marianna, Attitude in a company is everything, but every time someone questioned Lavasoft (after being patient for soooo long), it was ---- attack the critics! Is there a new Attitude Version 6? Doesn't look like it:

No apology. Just more of the same.

New product.
Same old Lavasoft.

Many of us will choose to entrust our security to people we can trust!

John
Luv2BSecure

 

Well said Luv2BSecure. In all fairness I tried AAW6 and found it not a good a Spybot S&D.

 

Thank you for your post, Marianna. Everyone obviously has the right to his/her own opinion, but I find it almost unconscionable that some people have copped such a judgmental, critical attitude against AdAware after everything AdAware has contributed to the area of Internet security. It always seems that the people who contribute the least have the most negative things to say. I believe that AdAware's contributions - past and present - speak for themselves. I am glad to see AdAware alive and well, and wish you continued success far into the future. I relish this opportunity to state - for the record - my own personal debt of gratitude to all of the AdAware/Lavasoft dedicated pioneers who have given us more than we could ever give back in return. As for the ingrates who always have more negative things to say than they ever have positive to contribute, their own actions speak volumes about them as well.

Very sincerely,

sk

 

Oops........ I was only the "messenger" ....... I have NOTHING to do with Lavasoft ....... and now you are "shooting" at ME

 

First, I am pleasantly surprised that the free version is out already. I was expecting it to be "delayed". However, that's about the only truely positive thing I can say about the free version.

The free version seems to me to just be the same old AA that is has been, just with a new GUI. I know that the "inards" are new and it's supposed to be better, but I just don't see anything that makes this a significant improvement that justified the months of abandonment that happened in late 2002. Sure, the plus and pro versions have more options, but I go by the "fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me" kind of logic. After months of no work on 5.83, I would expect that AA6 would be near perfect. It's had numerous updates in just a few days. This tends to lend credibility to those that say AA isn't properly beta tested.

Most importantly, there's an issue with AA6 identifying empty folders named "gator" as spyware when it is not. I know because I made a new folder and named it "Gator" and it was flagged as spyware. There was nothing in it because I made the folder, but if it's this easy to fool AA6, then how easy is it to fool it into a false negative? More on this is posted here and here .

I am not posting this to kick up dirt or to be nasty, but because I feel that there are "issues" and major public relations problems that need to be addressed by Lavasoft. Hopefully they will address these problems and better respond to users concerns and questions. Just releasing a new version is not enough. It will take months of consistant positive actions by Lavasoft to have any chance to repair the negative image that it has created.

Added after seeing new posts before mine:

I do not direct my post at you Marianna or anyone in particular except those who officially represent Lavasoft. It is true that AA was the only player at one time, but if they expect people to pay $39US for a program, they need to have a better track record in the present day instead of resting on their past achievements.

 

Well, anyone who shoots at you and makes you cry will ultimately come to learn - first-hand - of Dante's 'innermost circle'; of that I am sure. But in the meantime, Marianna, you might find this old time remedy a very handy personal defense against such mindless attacks: Just say this out loud and you are guaranteed to be safe from any negative fallout whatsoever: "I'm rubber...you're glue...bounces off me...and sticks to you"! (I have it on good authority that this is still the best all time favorite against all forms of mindless attacks!!)

sk

 

THANKS SK - I'm feeling much better now

 

> Many of us will choose to entrust our security to people we can trust!

I got into spyware early ... I was involved in the Aureate exposure from the first day.

I used Ad-aware from the first freebie release, and I licensed it when it went commercial.

I was rather dismayed when it vanished off the face of the earth with no warning or apology.

After several months of zero support and an ignored email asking what was going on, I was even more dismayed to receive an email inviting me to upgrade to the new version for 50% off.

It's not the way I would have handled it!

 

Maybe I'm an old softie but I took what Lavasoft said at the time as OK by me- at least it was honest, though maybe a little misguided
AdAware is nice utility & I did not feel aggrieved by there abscence for a short while - We all were able to use other tools such as Spybot etc.
I like the new version very much & paid extra for the Pro version.
Gullible, I maybe, but I believe Lavasoft still have a lot to offer.
Giving any work away free is sacrifice for the owners of that work - so let's give them a chance.

 

A general response to Nicolas:

As I was reading your replies, three thoughts kept churning through my head:

1. Thanks for setting the record straight.
2. It's a shame you have to take time away from development of A.A. to answer such nonsense in the first place.
3. I'd love to see what wonderful contributions to the security/privacy software field these self-proclaimed experts have made.

Finally, after all the years of having enjoyed A.A. for free, I can hardly wait to go purchase the commercial version and, in a sense, put my money where my mouth is. I can't think of a single other product (with the possible exception of Proxomitron) about which I would say the same thing.

Once again, thanks, and much continued success.

sk

 

Hello everybody,
We did not drop support of our customers and users during the developement of Ad-aware 6, I provided email support and assistance whith their problems whenever possible.So did the rest of the staff.
Updating the outdated 5x core engine over and over again as we did in the past seemed not the appriopriate solution.
Of course I'll updating the engine as well now frequently, but critical updates are now rarely required.

The following is a response to Mr. Kalaher resp. the links posted above.

"..As you all know, I've been testing it.."

Mr. Kalaher (aka Nick,mViOkPe,Mikey and his other countless names):
Taken your continously slandering of our users and our software the past moths and even years, I question the
objectivity of your "testing", and I doubt your interest to provide the user an substantial overview.
If you would have the slightest spark of decency, you would at least respect other peoples hard work, especially since
you never provided a single piece of helpful software to the community.
I never harrassed other products neither on our board, nor in the public.You are using your namless accounts on
several boards(including ours) to do nothing else then slandering Ad-aware and its users.Don't think this remains unnoticed by the public.
Before posting the same false facts you should at least take a look into the Ad-aware 6 user manual.
There exists a "Reanalyze" function, which will filter the folders you've mentoined out of the scanning result.

Ad-aware 6 does NOT rely on "name recognition".
Ad-aware uses its own type of checksums, which are calculated fast and are 100 % accurate, and in most cases do not
even depend on a particular image of the executable.

"..Here you will notice that urizen claims that the new ref file will cure the prob. It doesn't. "

Read my response again, i've admitted that for the objects in question the hash signatures where not included in the
reffile at that time, however I've included them in the update followed one day later.
There are a few Gator, Conducent and Aureate distributions from 99/00 which are left-overs from the previous reference file, for which the binaries where no more available to update their signatures at that time.
(They make less than 0.1 % of all files Ad-aware 6 targets)
Btw, I just updated the referencefile again, and included most of the remaining.

However, at least Ad-aware is not using Wildcard-filename recognition, as Spybot does.

Now, "Spybot" using checksums..is far away from the truth.*)
Its an undeniable fact that Spybots "detection" is SOLEY based on information hard-coded in its database, which makes
it as weak as it is.(And slow, taken into account what it actually does respectively NOT does)
Especially its file-detection is SOLELY based on filename-recognition.

*) i just noticed you edited this false claim (Spybot using checksums) out.You certainly know why.

IF you set it up to scan some folders, it will produce more FPs then it detects valid targets, appearantly you never
tried it.

http://www.auracom.de/fps.gif

The red items in the scan result show only 100 % LEGIT files (One of them even is a copy of the Spybot core file ;-)
By recreating the registry keys spybot "detects", you can produce (forced) FPs on demand, so of course the same result is reproducable using registry keys or values.

I could show you 100 ways to produce FPs with the software you are promoting, but its pointless.
Instead of slandering other peoples work, I try to do it better.


Now, how about the converse scenario.

"I have tried changing names of known nasty files and AA missed every one of them."

This looks like yet another one of your false claims.
I can show you a file that will change its MD5\CRC value whenever executed.
Ad-aware will still recognize this file.(Yes, even if you rename it ;-) )
But if you know what you're doing, make a test with the recent lop distribution.

Lets see how Spybot handles the recent lop.com distributable, which uses random GUIDs-, key-, Value- and filenames.
Ad-aware still detects them, while spybot leaves all the vital core components behind, fully intact, it doesn't even recognize or terminate the process.
We've gotten several reports from users who relied on spybot, and now detected using Ad-aware 6 that they had a bunch of core files (not only lop) installed.

"Forgot to mention that AA also targets SSD backups even tho they are individually zipped and in the SSD 'backups'
folder. "

Those files are perfectly valid targets, claiming that these are FP's reveals only your lack of
If you can't stand the fact that Spybot's simply moving those files it detected (while they remain fully functional,
and theoretically executable), turn the in-archive scan feature off or don't scan your "Spybot" folders at all.
Instead of killing the "messenger", you should better inform your users about the potential security risk of Spybot's
unencrypted "recovery" archives.However, Ad-aware does what it is intended to do.Detecting targeted content.

Given all the above,
And given the fact that the tool you keep promoting has a considerably higher risk of generating FP's,
and a remarkable less effective engine, what are your real motives when you create threads like this one http://www.lurkhere.com/cgi-bin/forums/dcboard.cgi?az=read_count&om=272&forum=DCForumID6 as an example?
Or using countless accounts (at least 10 on the LS board over the last 6 months) to put the presence of a group of people, all confirming eachother ;-)
Well, as stated before, it is beeing noticed by more and more people.

Of course you are welcome to open a thread about this particular matter on the LS board www.lavasoftsupport.com

Best regards
Nicolas\Team Lavasoft

 

Hi Nicolas,

Is it OK to remove your previous attempts?
Quite a bit of reading to go through all of them.

Regards,

Pieter

 

Hi Pieter,
Sorry about the multiple posts lol
I hope this is not considederd spamming.
(Preview button sucked)
However, the first three are incomplete and can be removed

Nicolas

 

Hello sk,
Thank you very much for your positive feedback
It wasn't my intention to slander a competiting product.
In fact, this was my first response to the slandering that keeps coming from the same direction.
However, I can assure you there's now a lot more to come from LS in the near future
A new referencefile is coming today, and a new plug-in is currently beeing betatested.

Best regards
Nicolas

 

Nicolas, I have added an updated review to my website wth a screenie showing proc mon - Nice job you & your team have done.

 

Marianna, just so you'll know I wasn't agreeing with L2BS talking to you like that, I was just agreeing with what he said about Lavasoft.

 

SK, lot of people would pay for products if they didn't just leave one product alone while they start a new one. The free version is there to try if you like and can afford it you buy it but is they don't take care of the free or payed for version while they make another version i see it as an that they wasn't going to give good support if I payed for the product. I'm not trying to start anything with you just making a point.

 

Hi Nicolas,

So sorry but here a little negative feedback

AA6 counts 30 active processes on my system when there are in fact 34 running. No way to know which ones it's missing : there are not listed.

I am confident it will be solved soon

Rgds,

 

JacK,

Can´t you tell from the scanlogs? The running processes should be listed.

Regards,

Pieter

 

Nicolas .....Good to see you out & about on the boards. .......

 

Hey!

Can we lighten up on L2BS please?

All that happened was that he was under the mistaken assumption that Marianna was connected to LS!

When he realizes his error, I'm sure he'll make that right.

Deep breaths! OOOOOOMMMMMMM! Pete

 

Marianna,

I just read the last post and it was Pete's post saying I obviously thought you represented Lavasoft. That's exactly right and I am very, very sorry. I would never have addressed you, had I not thought you were connected with Lavasoft. My sincere apologies.

I have read the responses and I think it is perfectly fine for people to have divergent opinions.

I would like to take issue with one remark from SK that he should explain:

Considering I was the negative post to AdAware, one can only assume you were talking about me. Please go to my profile and just take a look at my posts. I defy you to find posts that are not, in some way, trying to help or trying to learn. A long time ago there was a "brush up" over what turned out to really be a misunderstanding of what constituted appropriate political posts. Since then, I have made hundreds and hundreds of posts and do not consider that your above post applies to me in any way. Coming right after my post about Lavasoft - it was rather obvious you were referring to me and I simply wanted to take issue with that as I spend hours on this forum trying to help and contribute and learn.

As for Lavasoft, I stand by my opinion. But, that should be okay. I really, truly believe every word I said.

Again, Marianna, my apologies for addressing my comments to you.

John
Luv2BSecure

 

Hi Pieter,

Yes, I do but it's a bore to check for they are not listed in a logical order.
Not listed :
csrss.exe
system
Inactive system process (I understand : it's a "non process")

But to be clear it would match with the taskmanager
(Running WinXP Pro SP1)

Rgds,

 

@ John,

I don´t think sk´s post was directed at anyone and certainly not at you.

@ Jack,

I see what you mean. Maybe Nicolas will be back to enlighten us on those.

Regards,

Pieter