Author Topic: Does Avast also block adware?  (Read 17985 times)

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kaufam7

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Does Avast also block adware?
« on: September 15, 2010, 05:00:26 AM »
I have been simultaneously running Avast Free Anti-virus and Lavasoft Ad-Aware for several years with no problems. Recently, Ad-Aware has been randomly shutting down for no apparent reason. If I disable Avast, however, it seems to run fine. I have discovered that the latest versions of both programs are very memory hungry and I have only 1 GB. I have ordered more memory for my computer to double it to 2 GB, but it would still be great if I only had to run one program or the other rather than both. Ad-Aware has recently added some virus protection to their program, but I don't know if it is as good or as extensive as Avast's protection. Anyone have any advice or suggestions?

Offline DavidR

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Re: Does Avast also block adware?
« Reply #1 on: September 15, 2010, 05:20:55 AM »
Personally I wouldn't give hard disk space to adaware as over the years it is much depreciated it used to be top of the heap but no longer.

Whilst avast isn't a specialist adware/spyware application it does have anti-spyware built into the main program.

I would suggest you uninstall adaware and replace it with MBAM and or SAS in that order, see below.

If you haven't already got this software (freeware), download, install, update and run it/them periodically.

Don't worry about reported tracking cookies they are a minor issue and not one of security, allow SAS to deal with them though. - See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_cookie.
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SafeSurf

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Re: Does Avast also block adware?
« Reply #2 on: September 15, 2010, 06:43:04 AM »
I agree with the above.  We have had some users report problems with adaware, which is also now obsolete.  Many of us use MBAM (Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Free), which does not conflict with Avast.

·   Download free http://www.malwarebytes.org/ for an on-demand scanner.
·   Double Click mbam-setup.exe to install the application.
·   After install and before running a scan, click update so you have latest database before scanning.

Remember to uninstall adaware per the vendor's uninstall instructions, then reboot.

Let us know if you have any additional questions.  Thank you and welcome to the forum.  :)

Offline RejZoR

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Re: Does Avast also block adware?
« Reply #3 on: September 15, 2010, 08:23:10 AM »
Aggressive adware will be detected, though you might have to enable PUP detection in order to detect all.
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SafeSurf

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Re: Does Avast also block adware?
« Reply #4 on: September 15, 2010, 08:39:36 AM »
Aggressive adware will be detected, though you might have to enable PUP detection in order to detect all.
You mean in Avast.  The OP may not be aware of these PUP settings that Avast has.  Normally we don't recommend that you can change from default settings unless you know what you are doing or are an advanced user, but you certainly can, however you also may get some false positives (FP) along with this.

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Re: Does Avast also block adware?
« Reply #5 on: September 15, 2010, 09:43:39 AM »
PUP detection doesn't raise any more false positives as usual. It's just that user has to decide if PUP was actually wanted or just piggybacked silently to some other application.
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Offline DavidR

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Re: Does Avast also block adware?
« Reply #6 on: September 15, 2010, 02:53:59 PM »
PUP detection doesn't raise any more false positives as usual. It's just that user has to decide if PUP was actually wanted or just piggybacked silently to some other application.

Unfortunately that is the problem, the user has to decide, frequently they don't know what to decide what to do about the PUP (Potentially Unwanted Program). Which I guess is why that option isn't on by default.
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Re: Does Avast also block adware?
« Reply #7 on: September 15, 2010, 03:10:26 PM »
Well, even if user's decision is wrong, there is a 50:50 chance that it will be the right one :)
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