Technology Vault - NewsBytes

Thursday 26 December, 2002

Stop using Lavasoft's Ad-aware by @ 11:09 pm

That is the message being given out tonight by Tech-Critic. It's out of date and it's has been proven to be dangerous we are told.

This news comes as a major shock to the 1000's of users that use Lavasoft's Ad-Aware. But Lavasoft themselves admit that the program is out of date, it has not been updated since September 24th 2002 and is nolonger supported by Lavasoft.

The Tech-Critic news report say: 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 Support is still offered at their support forums and via email, but the program is no longer being updated to handle new spyware targets.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.

Lavasoft has replied to these claims on their support forums HERE. They tell us that a new version of Ad-Aware will soon be available (version 6).

So, what alternatives have we while we wait for Lavasoft to get it's act together? Well, some kind person on the Tech-Critic forums has given a link to the SPYBOT website. They also provide a program to remove spyware from our systems which is also freeware. CLICK HERE to download Spybot direct from one of the 'English' mirror sites.

You can read the original story on the Tech-Critic website if you CLICK HERE

Warning: Spybot-S&D contains some routines to find and correct invalid entries into the registry. As with any tool or utility that plays about with your registry, always make sure you have backed-up your system before hand. Use these programs at your own risk.

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