Mike's Safety Belt
~~Mike Baynes, MikesWhatsNews

Is AdAware Dead?

During the Christmas holidays, messages started appearing that AdAware was dead and that it was no longer supported.

Reference:

"Stop using Lavasoft's Ad-aware

"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 Support is still offered at their support forums and via email, but the program is no longer being updated to handle new spyware targets.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. "
++ There is more on the web site.

It is interesting to note that this comment comes from a competitor of AdAware, which has banner advertising on its pages.  AdAware has a long history, and is currently developing its new 'engine'.
Reference;
Quoted out of mid article, from LavaSoft:

"We have been hard at work on that very upgrade, but where this is different is in WHAT we are upgrading to. As many of you already know, we are/were working on version 6. It is an entirely new application; more powerful, expandable, configurable, and to be quite honest, light years ahead of version 5.83. We decided that any further upgrades beyond 5.83 would be more of a waste of time than productive as the coding work for version 6 was already underway. We therefore decided to place all of our efforts into the new version.

"We are however notifying you (our customers and the general public) that we have entered into the late stages of beta testing. Except for some minor polishing and some last minute initial bug fixes, we are nearly done and
should be ready to release Ad-aware 6 to our customers mid January 2003 and to our freeware users at the beginning of February 2003. Please be patient and we are confident that when you see what we have to offer you will understand AND appreciate the time taken to make it the best solution available!   '
++ There is more on the web site.

AdAware does have a support forum here; http://www.lavasoftsupport.com

For a little history lesson about spyware and the efforts to block it, read some of Steve Gibson's earlier articles.

Steve Gibson's WebZone
http://grc.com/steve.htm

OptOut — the original spyware detection and removal tool
The work on the Internet Spyware Analyzer (above) led to the creation of the free "OptOut" spyware removal tool. Optout was hugely successful with more than 2,544,000 individual downloads. When the Lavasoft folks promised to extend their Ad-Aware tool, while keeping it free, I formally turned the task of spyware removal over to them. They are doing a >great< job.
++ There is more on the web site.

Remember be diligent in your downloads, scan everything.  Sometimes hackers put malicious code into popular downloads.  It is your responsibility to surf safely.

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