This brings us to Ad-aware, a must-have utility for detecting and protecting yourself against data mining, advertising, and tracking components — in other words, all forms of adware. (We'll be tackling the other side of malware, spyware, in future reviews of tools like Spybot Search and Destroy and SpyStopper).
The name of the game with Ad-aware is simplicity, with a clean, easy to understand interface that makes scanning for adware components a quick and simple task. A scan of more than 40,000 objects on our test system commenced after two quick clicks and was completed in just under 2 1/2 minutes.
Removing found adware components is just as easy. Ad-aware's default method of addressing spyware quarantines the files it removes, providing you with the opportunity to restore selected components should you run into any problems at a later time. An option to immediately delete all found components is available as well.
Fortunately, behind the eye-catching, straightforward interface lies a wealth of advanced features and configuration options sure to satisfy expert users and IT networking staffs alike. Advanced features include Browser Hijacker detection (for adware such as Adware.IGetNet, Adware.MainSearch, Adware.Winshow, and Adware.ILookup), a smart scan mode, automatic quarantine and Recycle Bin storage of removed components, shell extension capabilities, an integrated reference file updater that can automatically search for and download new reference files, and HOSTS file scanning.
Ad-aware also supports plug-ins for providing additional features and functionality, with plug-ins currently available for turning off the Windows Messenger Service (Messenger-Control plug-in), preventing Windows Messenger from automatically starting when Outlook Express launches (OE-W Messengerctrl), viewing a hexadecimal version of a file (and an "English" translation of the code turned up in a scan (HexDump), viewing active LSP and Name Service Providers on your system (LSP Explorer), and viewing extensive file information (file name, location, size, creation date, access/modified date, and PE Header information) for scanned files (FileSpecs for Ad-aware Professional).
In addition to the standard English version, Ad-aware is also available in the following languages: Arabic, Brazil, Catalan, Deutsch, Czech, Dutch, Danish, Español, Estonian, Finnish, Francais, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Korean, Magyar, Norsk, Polski, Portuguese, Russian, Svenska, and Traditional Chinese
