What is Ad-Aware?
Ad-Aware is a freeware program by Lavasoft (a German company), that is designed to remove applications commonly known as spyware or adware. They also have a site based in the US. The current version is Ad-Aware SE (short for Second Edition). Installation is similar to most appications, simply click on the download link and either open, from the location or save to your hard drive and double click on the downloaded file. The Windows InstallShield should start and complete the installation process with prompts.
Before running Ad-Aware, you should read the tutorial on spyware, particularly the section titled “What should I do before running spyware removal tools?”
Scanning with Ad-Aware
After installation, Ad-Aware can be accessed from a shortcut on your desktop or via the Start Menu. Simply click on one of the shortcuts to open the program. If it hasn’t been used for a while or if it is the first use, it may prompt you to check for and download the latest definition files, just follow the prompts.
Once the definition download is complete, it will open the Ad-Aware Status Screen as in the screenshot below.
The status page shows the date of the last scan and objects removed/ignored on the last scan, as well as links to the ignore and quarantine lists. There is also a link to check for updates. If the update hasn’t kicked in when you start up, then you should update before scanning.
To run a scan, click on the Start button on the bottom right-hand side of the Status screen. On this screen you can choose which type of scan you wish to perform. We recommend running a full system scan. In the screenshot below, you will see two lines saying “Search for negligible risk entries” and “Search for low-risk threats”. If you click on the small circles, they can be toggled on and off, shown as a red cross if off and a green tick/check mark if on.
Negligible risk entries are MRU entries, basically a list of last used files and programs, ie user tracks. It isn’t necessary to run this unless you are concerned about other users seeing what files you have opened etc. We would recommend setting the low-risk threats for scanning though.
Once you have selected your scan choice, click the Next button and the scan will begin. As Ad-Aware scans the files present on the computer (or at least those satisfying the scan criteria), the file names and locations flash past. There is also a list of files found in various categories, it isn’t really necessary to understand each of those.
Once the scan is complete, a Scan Summary screen showing the objects found (if any) will appear. In the screenshot below, there are two entries showing, with the numbers of threats of each type. As can be seen, there are two tracking cookies, which are considered to be low-risk (not stated) and two ClearSearch objects (files), which would be considered high-risk. Clicking on the tab labelled Critical Objects would show a list of the low-, medium- and high-risk threats, but not the MRU items. If you wish to see the individual items found, clicking on the + sign will give more details, such as filenames and the actual cookies found. The summary on the right also states how many critical objects were found.
To delete the threats shown, simply click on the small boxes beside the items to place a tick/check mark inside them, then click on the Next button or if you aren’t sure whether they should be deleted, click on the Quarantine button instead. Once you have clicked on Next, you will be returned to the Status screen.
Other Features of Ad-Aware
Ad-watch
Ad-watch is a premium feature not available in the freeware version, but it is real-time protection.
Add-ons
These are basically additional plugins, available for download from the Lavasoft site. The most useful plugin is the VX2 plugin, this is used for malware that are variants of Look2Me/VX2. These threats aren’t removed without the plugin. To install the plugin, close Ad-Aware and double-click on the downloaded plugin file. Start Ad-Aware again to complete the installation. It should now show in the plugin list. It will scan for VX2 adware on the next scan with the main program.
Help
This is basically as the name suggests, simply a button to access the Help manual in the usual Windows format.
Buttons in Top Right Corner
In the top right-hand corner, there are five further buttons. From left to right, these are, Ad-Watch, Ad-Aware Configuration, Quarantine Manager, Web Update Tool and About Ad-Aware. These are fairly self explanatory. Ad-Watch has already been explained. Ad-Aware configuration is simply to change preferences and most options are fairly obvious, although you shouldn’t need to make too many changes. The Quarantine Manager is just a list of backed up items that have been removed, in case they are needed. The Web Update tool is the same as the link on the status page. The About Ad-Aware button gives information about the installed version, with a link to upgrade if a new version has been released. In general, once a new version is released, you can no longer get definition updates for the older versions.
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