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Stop using Ad-Aware for Spyware removal - UPDATED

According to this article, Ad-Aware is no longer being supported or updated for new spyware. From the article:

I truly hate that it has come to this. Lavasoft's Ad-aware used to be a fine product. Not only was it the only free solution for finding and destroying advertising spyware, it was also a good program. However, Lavasoft has abandoned Ad-aware 5.83. Support is still offered at their support forums and via email, but the program is no longer being updated to handle new spyware targets. In fact, I feel that it is necessary to recommend to everyone that they simply remove Ad-aware version 5 entirely. Using it in its current, unupdated form can be, and has been proven to be dangerous.

Ad-aware has not had a reference file update since September 24. I've personally submitted over a dozen new spyware/hijacker targets and lord knows how many updates to old spyware/hijackers. Other developers on my private mailing list update when new targets are submitted to them. Lavasoft has not.

So if you're using Ad-Aware, switch to something else like the free SpyBot S&D that's updated more frequently, according to the article (I have them both installed).

UPDATED: Apparently the guys on spywareinfo.com were full of crap. Lavasoft has plans to release version 6.0 of their software next month, according to this Lavasoft forum post.

Posted by Jake on 12/28/02 @ 11:48 AM
Posted in Geekdom | 5 Comments | Permalink
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5 Comments

Nameless One said on 03/16/04 @ 02:30 AM:
Also, Ad-Aware apparently has its own spyware. I installed Spybot and it says Ad-Aware is installed, even after I uninstalled it.

Nameless One said on 11/17/04 @ 09:05 PM:
I have adaware 5.83 on my computer and I can't seem to delete it. I get a message that says something to the effect that it cannot be removed - or that INSTALL.log cannot be found. If it try to remove it again, my screen freezes -- HHEEEELLLLPP!

quinn Proby said on 10/31/05 @ 09:05 AM:
i want to uninstall ad-aware and the screen says install.log cannot be found. the version is 5.83. help please

Nameless One said on 11/21/05 @ 05:19 PM:
I want to UNINSTALL ad-aware and the screen says install.log cannot be found. the version is 5.83. help please

sioko said on 11/25/05 @ 11:27 AM:
Yeah right,
good luck finding help on that topic, no one seems to know or care how to fix it. I've got the same problem and am on page 20 of a google search for a fix and have yet to see anything more useful than "add/remove programs" which doesn't work. looks like we're stuck w/it... T_T

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