SOHOLogics

Clean Up Spyware With Lavasoft Ad-Aware

By: Christy Osborne

Are you being stalked? Do you feel like you are being watched everytime you use your home computer? If you aren't using Lavasoft Ad-Aware personal, you are.

Are you being stalked? Do you feel like you are being watched everytime you use your home computer? If you aren’t using Lavasoft Ad-Aware personal, you are. Spyware, Trojans, dialers, malware, browser hijackers, and tracking components could be stalking your PC at this very moment! Yet, there is relief: with Lavasoft Ad-Aware Personal, you may still have to fear who “knows what you did last summer,” but you don’t have to worry about an unprotected computer.

If you remember, the first article in this series of defense programs for your computer’s security, I already discussed the benefits of using Windows Defender. So why should you use Lavasoft Ad-Aware as well? The reason is that Ad-Aware is filtering what Defender does not: tracking cookies and other Spyware components. No antispyware solution is 100% effective, and each targets different things. Therefore, make your computer like Fort Knox today with both Windows Defender and Lavasoft Ad-Aware!

This program is compatible with Windows 98, Windows XP, Terminal Services, and much more. To download this freeware program, take a look below!

1. Go to www.lavasoft.com, and click the Free Download for Ad-Aware SE Personal button.
2. After the download has finished, step through the Install Wizard by clicking Next.
   • Be sure to accept the licensing agreement and choose to apply the application for all that use the computer.
3. Click Finish.
   • Do not choose to run a scan right after the download is finished.

After your install, you must run WebUpdate before scanning with Ad-Aware SE. To do so:

1. Click the World symbol located on the quick launch toolbar.
   
   
   
   
2. Click Configure, and then click Connect to run the update.
   
   
   
   
3. Next, click the Gear symbol located in the quick launch toolbar.
4. Click Settings in the upper right corner of the main status screen.
5. Next, select General Settings option.
   
   
   
   
6. Check the Automatically quarantine objects prior to removal setting.
7. Click Proceed. This setting is recommended for all scans.

After you have done this necessary prep work, you are now ready to commence your first scan.

1. Click the Scan now button in the left side of the main status screen
   • You can also click the Start button in lower right corner.
     
     
     
     
2. This opens the Preparing System Scan screen. Select Perform Full System scan and click Next.
   
   
   
   
3. After the scanning process, a detailed listing of detected items appears. Review each item before removing them. Remember that not everything detected by Ad-Aware should be removed; since this can be difficult, you can review the Threat Assessment Chart.
   
   • To view the Threat Assessment Chart, go to www.lavasoft.com/support/securitycenter/threat_analysis.php
   • To keep an item that you do not want deleted:
     
     1. Select the item.
     2. Then, right click the item to open the context menu
     3. Select the Add selection to ignore list to add it to your ignore list.
   
   
4. Click the Next button on the "Scan Complete" screen to view the scanning results.
5. Select each item you wish to remove by selecting them in the scan results lists.
6. You can also right click to select multiple items with the context menu.
7. To ensure you remove all of the bad items, click on the Critical Objects tab.
8. Right click on any one of the items listed and click Select All Objects.
   
   
   
   
9. Click Next and finally click OK in the pop-up window to confirm removal of the item(s).

One final note, in this free-ware edition of Lavasoft SE Personal, the option for scheduled scans of your PC have been disabled. Therefore, unlike Windows Defender and CCleaner, you will need to manually run this scan monthly.