AAW6

February 5, 2003 6:37 PM

Ad Aware 6 released. The long awaited (at least for me) king of spyware detectors is now available for download.
posted by skallas (35 comments total)

woohoo!
posted by ph00dz at 6:38 PM on February 5, 2003

THANK YOU JEEBUS.
posted by UKnowForKids at 6:55 PM on February 5, 2003

Mmmm goodness.
posted by jeblis at 6:57 PM on February 5, 2003

The Majorgeeks ftp failed, bu one of the others is working fine.

Thanks for the heads up on this.
posted by lampshade at 7:01 PM on February 5, 2003

Yay!!!!
posted by blade at 7:03 PM on February 5, 2003

And in other news, these other programs were updated, too.
posted by Su at 7:17 PM on February 5, 2003

Haha, su. Very funny...

... the thing is, I really find Ad Aware pretty useful. After all the controversy and whatnot, it's nice to see it finally come out.
posted by ph00dz at 7:19 PM on February 5, 2003

Thanks skallas. I've been waiting for the new release, if only to get rid of the Xupiter crap that's been invading clients at work. I've been weeding that beast out by hand so far.

Su lives to complain, btw.
posted by eyeballkid at 7:21 PM on February 5, 2003

Ahhh... 83 objects found and erased. It's good to have Ad-Aware back. Gracias skallas.
posted by Hildago at 7:24 PM on February 5, 2003

su, you may have been trying to be snarky, but your link will prove to be invaluable to me. So thanks.
posted by WolfDaddy at 7:25 PM on February 5, 2003

Okay, then, let me put it this way: The thing's at version 6, so it's been around. It's not new or novel; [insert obligatory reference to posting guidelines/suggestions]. What is so phenomenally new/wonderful about this particular update that it requires pointing out and subsequent possible discussion rather than say, a TextAd? Tell us something about it. Sub-optimal post.
Let's keep in mind that a large portion of my posts in the past have referenced pieces of software.
posted by Su at 7:26 PM on February 5, 2003

My question is, where's RefUpdate? Does it do it automatically now, or is that only in the pay version?
posted by Hildago at 7:27 PM on February 5, 2003

Sub-optimal post.

Well, sub-optimal comment. Take it to MetaTalk if you want to complain about the posts.
posted by Hildago at 7:30 PM on February 5, 2003

skallas - how do you know that this product isn't a trojan horse which actually functions as "Meta-spyware"?
posted by troutfishing at 7:33 PM on February 5, 2003

Because that would be wrong.
posted by Wet Spot at 7:40 PM on February 5, 2003

After all the controversy and whatnot

What's the controversy?
posted by PrinceValium at 7:41 PM on February 5, 2003

Thanks, skallas. Here's Scott Finnie's review.
posted by muckster at 8:12 PM on February 5, 2003

...and removal utility that has consistently lead the industry in safety, user satisfaction...

Cool stuff, but I think they mean "has consistently led the industry"...

Picking nits is my hobby...pray, continue...
posted by Bixby23 at 8:27 PM on February 5, 2003

I downloaded this today without even reading the MeFi post... I just randomly went to the ad-aware site because my computer here at work was plagued with spyware and ads.

This is a bright light in one otherwise personally crappy day.
posted by Hammerikaner at 8:28 PM on February 5, 2003

Yay! One Skallas detected and celebrated! :)
posted by MiguelCardoso at 8:43 PM on February 5, 2003

Adaware 6 downloaded... Ref file updated... Computer scanned...

0 objects found. I dunno if that's a good or bad thing...
posted by swank6 at 9:19 PM on February 5, 2003

I am a little confused. I had 64 objects and they went into quarantine. Then two seconds later i get another pop up in the corner of my screen. I scanned again and found another 5 objects. Then again and found 1 more. How the hell do I stop them?
posted by Recockulous at 9:24 PM on February 5, 2003

You cannot stop them.
posted by eddydamascene at 9:31 PM on February 5, 2003

I love this product, but UGH - that slogan:

"AD AWARE - The morning after pill for the internet"

wtf?
posted by scarabic at 10:10 PM on February 5, 2003

hey recockulous - try a virus checker also. we had a similar problem with a recurring instance of a bloody IRC Trojan last week, thing carried it's own instance of mIRC and would download and install spyware and viruses every login (I'm serious -- crazy shit there). it would rename itself explorer.exe (creative, eh?) and pop a mIRC window for a second on startup, connect to an irc server, download whatever nefarious package was waiting for it, then proceed to download and install gator, precision time, date manager, and a host of other scum-sucking apps

btw based on that name you sound like one of my friends (though I'm sure they'd spell it differently)
posted by badzen at 10:21 PM on February 5, 2003

Another great program I heard about on Scot's newsletter is Mailwasher. Preview, delete and bounce mail without downloading it. I'm updating my ad aware right now.
posted by Mack Twain at 11:59 PM on February 5, 2003

I used to use AdAware 5 but recently switched to Spybot - Search & Destroy after they stopped producing updates.

Is it worth switching back to AdAware 6?
posted by ralawrence at 2:24 AM on February 6, 2003

Is it worth switching back to AdAware 6?

Who said anything about switching? I run both and it seems to work ok. (Of course, I haven't rebooted since running the new AdAware, so I reserve the right to come back and swear).
posted by yerfatma at 4:41 AM on February 6, 2003

New AdAware hurts my eyes.
posted by digiboy at 6:07 AM on February 6, 2003

Thank you skallas!
posted by adampsyche at 6:16 AM on February 6, 2003

Well, I had 467 cookies erased by version 6 that version 5.83 didn't catch. Can anyone top that?
posted by stevefromsparks at 2:51 PM on February 6, 2003

what's so bad about sbeing spied on? My wife and I have neighbors watch us have sex. And all are happy for it.
posted by Postroad at 3:04 PM on February 6, 2003

Yes, but do your neighbors give you cookies?
posted by ook at 4:24 PM on February 6, 2003

Adware? What's that? :D

Seriously, though, AAW is a great program if you do happen to run Windows, although the very fact that it exists saddens me, because it's testament to the ungodly amounts of adware/spyware out there. It'd be nice if it were illegal, but I don't see that happening anytime soon (*grumble grumble politically loaded anti-Congress comment grumble grumble*).
posted by cyrusdogstar at 6:30 PM on February 6, 2003

Be sure to update the reference file. I found 24 additional nasty files after I found 76 of them with the one that came bundled... decided to buy the cheaper version of the program so I could have the memory-resident Ad-Watch program, too. $26 well spent.
posted by crunchland at 7:07 PM on February 6, 2003