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When used in conjunction with Spybot Search & Destroy, Ad-Aware can be one of the very best things that you can run on your machine to keep it working optimally.
Adware is any application that downloads or displays ads on your PC while you are using an application or viewing a website. It can even be used to override the advertising that’s already configured to display on a website. The other thing that Ad-Aware is top-notch at removing is any tracking cookie that a website may have placed on your PC. While cookies are generally harmless, some people feel better if they wipe them off the machine each time they run the application. Whatever suits you is fine.
As with Spybot, the first thing you need to do is click the Update button and let it grab the latest definitions from the website. After that’s completed, click on Scan Now, and select your level of paranoia. I personally just go with the default setting (Smart Scan), which scans the areas of your drive that are most likely to be affected by adware.
After the scan is complete, it’ll show three tabs, as below, with the various severity levels indicated.
The three tabs are headed Critical, Tracking Cookies, and Logfile. If there’s anything under the Critical tab, let Ad-Aware deal with it. The other two are personal choices. I don’t worry a whole lot about the tracking cookies myself, but if you’d feel better deleting them, by all means do so.
Ad-Aware does feature a few other tools to help keep your PC running its best. Ad-Watch monitors your system in real time to protect the most commonly attacked areas of your operating system, including the Registry and all running processes. It’ll also clear all cookies every time you close your browser if you wish, and even delete cookies on the fly if it deems them to be malicious.
Regardless of how you look at it, though, both Ad-Aware and Spybot make for an excellent defense against the malicious software that tries to get on to your PC on a daily basis.
Download Ad-Aware from LavaSoft, and then please have a look at the Spybot tutorial.
