[Out-of-the-Box Review] Lavasoft Ad-Aware Free Antivirus+ v10.5

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Deleted member 178

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Lavasoft Ad-Aware Free Antivirus+


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Hi,

Lavasoft Ad-Aware Free Antivirus+ v10 was just released, i never used it before so i will discover it with you by doing an "out-of-the-box" review on a real system (dedicated Rollback RX snapshot with Win 8 x64 Pro up-to-date)

Installation

I downloaded the online installer directly from the website, it weight 5mb, then it will ask you if you want a default installation, companion AV installation or custom installation. You can also install its toolbar (secure search engine -blekko - , web reputation, toolbar cleaner, etc...)

I chose the default one with the toolbar and co.

Code:
Ad-Aware Security Toolbar constantly checks sites against a constantly updated list of reported phishing and malware infected sites. The list is updated every 5-20 minutes and provides real-time browsing protection against the latest web-based exploits, from back door Trojans to phishing sites.

brgdKCL.jpg


then the installer will download the software (~23mb) and update the signatures database.

It will do a reboot of the system, i don't feel any major slowdown during it, this is good.

Resource Usage

3 processes for around 60mb RAM, its correct. i dont feel slowdowns.

j2Uf31o.jpg


Note that the toolbar will add another process using around 10mb.

Interface

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The main UI is quite nice to the eye, Ad-Aware will ask you to register under 30 days "à la Avast" to keep protecting you. Ok lets do it. I got the email and the key ; then the UI become like that:

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Options Tab

Nothing special there

--General : Show your license and allow you to set the close/minimize button functions
--Update : Allow you to check and tun on/off the automatic update; shows the software version
--Gaming Mode: You can turn it on/off here

Basic Protection Panel

Antivirus & Spyware tab

Divided into several panels:

- Scan, Quarantine, Reports, Schedule, Ignore List, Update Definition, Performance Setting.

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Nothing really special in the scan panel, you know what will be scanned or not.

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I like this panel option, may be useful when working during a scan.


Real-Time Protection

It is divided into:

-- Realtime protection, that allows you to select what will be protected

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--Identity Protection (available only to USA citizen)

Code:
Identity Monitoring & Data Security Services

Integration with ID Watchdog provides free credit report monitoring and alerting capabilities to notify users of any critical changes to their credit report that might be an early indicator of identity theft.

Monitor your Social Security Number, address history and other personally identifiable information. (service available to U.S Citizens only)


DMxf2PO.jpg

--Safe Browsing, in fact, its Web Filter

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Advanced Protection

Only for paid users.


Scan

Now i will do a custom scan of my "C:\Windows" folder with Critical Performance.

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Resources usage:

fcCe77z.jpg


We can see that the scan is low on resources (~30mb and 7% of CPU) , also we can guess that Ad-Aware uses GFI Vipre's engine.


Malware Test

Using a malware pack uploaded today on our hub.

Context scan:

detected: 29/36 = 80%
deleted: 27/36= 75%

Quite correct.

ETggLus.jpg

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Execution of leftovers

2 samples were detected and quarantined, some others were running.

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Final Note

Adaware is a decent solution , easy to use and setup with a correct engine, but the lack of features will not be enough compared to other freebies like Comodo IS, Avast, AVG or Avira.

I rate it 2/5


Thanks for reading.
 
D

Deleted member 178

Thread author
yes! requested by Earth; and i was curious too :D
 

Ink

Administrator
Verified
Staff Member
Well-known
Jan 8, 2011
22,361
Thanks for the review as well as OOTB only.
 

Exterminator

Community Manager
Verified
Staff Member
Well-known
Oct 23, 2012
12,527
Thanks for another great review.I have not used this for many,many years.Helps me to know that I probably wont for many more.
 

LS Andy

New Member
Jun 3, 2013
7
Hi,

Lavasoft guy here. Thanks for taking the time to review Ad-Aware. For the sake of balance (and to blow our own trumpet a bit), I wanted to post some additional recent reviews and awards/certifications from some industry testing bodies/magazines.

PC Mag May 2013 review, where Ad-Aware was named as joint Editor's choice for Free AV: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2418686,00.asp

AV-Test Certifications 2012/2013
Most recent: http://www.av-test.org/no_cache/en/tests/test-reports/?tx_avtestreports_pi1[report_no]=130576

VB 100 Award April 2013
https://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/archive/test?id=186

You can read more about their testing methodologies here:

PC Mag: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2382604,00.asp
AV-Test: http://www.av-test.org/en/test-procedures/
Virus Bulletin: https://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/about/methodology.xml

We're pretty selective about what features make it into Ad-Aware Free. Rather than trying to keep pace with other AV vendors who often include lots of (in my opinion) non-essential features that contribute more to bloating the app than actually protecting the user, we stuck to the core functionality of what a free AV needs to keep you safe.

Obviously, we make this program for you guys, so if you have some time, let me know what additional stuff you'd like to see in Ad-Aware and we can look into what it would take to make it happen.

Cheers,

Andy
Lavasoft Malware Lab
 
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