Ad-Aware Free Antivirus+ Review – Excellent Malware Detection Ratio

excellent
key review info
application features
  • Anti-malware security application
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Some of you may already be familiarized with the lineup of security applications developed by Lavasoft: Ad-Aware Free Antivirus+, Personal Security, Pro Security, and Total Security. They combine two engines (including Bitdefender's) for detecting and eliminated all popular forms of malware from the computer, including viruses, Trojans, worms, spyware, and adware.

Differences between the four Ad-Aware editions

In this order, each antivirus product comes with more features than the previous one: Free Antivirus+ has an antispyware module, real-time protection guard, download protection, safe browsing component, and gaming mode, while Personal Security adds shop and bank online safety, anti-phishing, and external storage scan mode.

Meanwhile, Pro Security throws a powerful two-way firewall along with an advanced and real-time email protection into the mix. Lastly, Total Security, which is considered the all-in package, completes the security circle with parental control, digital lock, and a file shredder.

The last three Ad-Aware flavors have different prices. However, what they all share is the two-way antivirus engine. Out of all four products, Ad-Aware Free Antivirus+ is the only one free. It is wrapped in a clear-cut and comfortable interface, featuring options intuitive enough to be figured out even by less experienced users.

Customizable installation pack

A notable aspect about Ad-Aware is that it can be installed as the primary antivirus solution on the computer, or if another such app already exists, then you can disable the real-time safeguard and set up Ad-Aware as a secondary line of defense against malware, in order to prevent any software conflicts that will likely lead to system failure.

Apart from the core components, the program also offers to install a browser extension for blocking dangerous websites (Ad-Aware Web Companion), as well as to set SecureSearch as the default homepage and search engine in Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome. Any of these modules can be deselected to make a clean installation. A reboot is necessary to finish setup.

Password protection and user-friendly interface

At startup, it is possible to password-protect Ad-Aware by inserting a 4-digit number, in order to prevent unauthorized users from modifying program settings. This is paired with an email address where you will receive the key in case you forget it.

Study the protection summary
Study the protection summary

The interface is clean and intuitive, showing the protection summary in the first window when it comes to the last scan date, definitions release date, number of signatures, along with the real-time protection status in addition to the other modules that are not available in the free edition.

Different scan modes

As all serious anti-malware applications, Ad-Aware lets you conduct multiple scan modes on the computer to check it for viruses, depending on the time you're willing to spend. A quick scan verifies the critical parts of the hard drive that are the usual hiding places (like active processes), a full scan takes into account the entire hard disk to perform a thorough search, while the custom scan mode enables you to handpick the exact files and folders you want to scrutinize, in case you have suspicions.

Examine scan details

During a scan job, you can check out the scan type, mode, estimated time left, current scan target, and elapsed time, along with a progress bar. This task can be paused and resumed later if you want to temporarily allocate the resources to other apps.

If any dangerous items are detected, you have the option to delete, ignore, attempt to heal, or send them to a quarantine for further examination. Results show the total number of deleted, quarantined, failed, ignored, and disinfected files.

Quarantine, exclusions, reports, and scheduled scans

The quarantine zone reveals the threat type and full path for each contained item, allowing you to restore them to their original location on the disk, or to delete them permanently. Ignored items can be consulted in a separate area, while scan log details can be checked out in reports. Ad-Aware is also capable of running scheduled tasks on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, depending on your preferences. Otherwise, the scheduler can be disabled with one click.

Examine scan report details
Examine scan report details

Real-time protection settings

The real-time guard keeps incoming threats at bay and shows notifications for such events on the desktop, permitting you to choose the course of action. It can be disabled anytime, and you can modify its default action (quarantine instead of disinfect), include archive files, emails, boot sectors, deep scan mode and large file scanning prevention in its radar, as well as disable the monitor for network files and smart scan mode.

As far as app management settings are concerned, it is possible to change the program security code, enable gaming mode, ignore notifications and manage them later, change the UI language, as well as reset all settings to default. 


The Good

Ad-Aware Free Antivirus+ worked smoothly in our tests, without prompting errors or causing the operating system to hang or crash. It had minimal impact on CPU and RAM, carried out scans rapidly, and provided an excellent malware detection ratio (99.7% success rate).

It is compatible with Windows 8/8.1, 7, Vista and XP (both 32- and 64-bit architecture types).

The interface is clean and intuitive for inexperienced users.

The program features a real-time guard against incoming threats, multiple scanning modes, password protection, different scanning modes, a virus quarantine, whitelist, reports, scheduled scans, and gaming mode.

It is free to use.

The Bad

There aren't many options when it comes to customization. For instance, it is not possible to set the scan priority level, select the file types to scan for, or schedule a custom scan.

The setup operation is lengthy, while estimated scan time left is not accurately displayed.

The Truth

Taking into account the fact that it is free, intuitive and rather powerful, you can definitely test Ad-Aware Free Antivirus+ for yourself and find out whether it meets your requirements or not.

user interface 5
features 4
ease of use 5
pricing / value 5


final rating 5
Editor's review
excellent
 
NEXT REVIEW: Supremo

Ad-Aware Free Antivirus+ (12 Images)

Install the app as a primary or secondary line of defense against malwareOptionally activate web protectionPassword-protect the app with a 4-digit PINStudy the protection summarySelect the scanning method
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