Lavasoft Ad-Aware 2008 Pro review

$40 (about £21.50) for the one year Pro version

Manufacturer: Lavasoft

Our Rating: We rate this 3.5 out of 5 User Rating:

By Robin Morris | 22 August 08

Lavasoft Ad-Aware 2008 Pro stretches to such demanding tasks as protecting your system from viruses and spyware, and securing your banking details and files.

Expert Review
User Reviews
Required Specs
Our Verdict

Now celebrating its tenth anniversary, Ad-Aware has been around since almost before adware itself. Its remit has widened somewhat over the years, and while the original Ad-Aware was designed simply to warn you when websites were tracking information on your PC, Lavasoft Ad-Aware 2008 Pro stretches to such demanding tasks as protecting your system from viruses and spyware, and securing your banking details and files.

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Lavasoft Ad-Aware 2008 Pro actually comes in four flavours (the most advanced Enterprise version is aimed at medium to large businesses). Home users can get a taste of what Lavasoft Ad-Aware 2008 Pro offers simply by downloading the free version, capable of performing a basic scan on your PC.

If you have an existing antivirus program to team this with, the free version could prove a decent option. You still don't get real-time detection of adware, although such a feature is, happily, available as Ad-Watch in the £15 upgrade, Ad-Aware Plus. This more expensive version also adds (amongst other features) integrated antivirus protection and free technical support.

The Plus version of Ad-aware 2008 will suffice for most users, although Lavasoft Ad-Aware 2008 Pro (£21.50), which we've tested for the purposes of this review, comes with a few more advanced tools. These include the rather unexciting command line support and network drive scanning, and the far more dynamic Ad-Watch Connect, which lets you see exactly what programs on your PC (Internet Explorer, Real Player etc.) are communicating with the outside world.

Used in conjunction with the general Processes monitor, these could prove a convenient way of checking that there are no uninvited guests sending information from your PC, As such, this feature is well worth the extra cost of the Lavasoft Ad-Aware 2008 Pro version.

Lavasoft Ad-Aware Pro 2008

Long-standing concerns about the lack of clarity in Ad-Aware's interface were fixed in the 2007 edition, with the result that the look and feel of the software was radically overhauled.

NEXT PAGE: the interface, RegShield and scanning

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Lavasoft Ad-Aware 2008 Pro Expert Verdict »

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Post Review

Reviewed by Evad on Wednesday 27 August 2008

Duration of ownership: 1 months

Strengths:
Great new features for computers with the latest chips and lots of memory.

Weaknesses:
Ad-Aware, AVG and Spybot Search & Destroy, which working togeather were my favourite three products, have all upgraded recently. All bigger programs needing more power and lots more memory.

Overall Evaluation:
My poor Athlon 1.1GHz, 256MB, just keeled over and crawled like a snail. So I have had to dump Ad-Aware and Spybot just to make my computer usable. That's progress? No lite versions?

Microsoft Windows 2000/XP/Vista
100MB hard drive space
256MB RAM
400MHz Intel or AMD processor

Ease of Use:
Features:
Value for Money:
Overall:

In these spyware-infested times, Ad-Watch Connect is particularly useful and, should you be looking for solid all-round protection, that could make the Lavasoft Ad-Aware 2008 Pro version more tempting than Plus. In general, apart from the poor execution of RegShield, Ad-Aware does a competent job. Its overall performance, however, can be improved upon by alternative antivirus and antispyware programs.

There are currently no price comparisons for this product.

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Lavasoft Ad-Aware Anniversary Edition

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Lavasoft Ad-Aware Pro 8.0.2 Anniversary Edition

Lavasoft Ad-Aware Pro 8.0.2, the paid-for version or the Anniversary Edition of Lavasoft's antispyware app, brings in an antivirus engine to supplement its antispyware scans.
Lavasoft Ad-Aware Free 8.3

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Lavasoft Ad-Aware Internet Security Pro 8.3

Ad-Aware Internet Security Pro 8.3, designed for businesses, resides at the upper end of Lavasoft's Ad-Aware internet security software product line.

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