If you’ve been around the Internet for a while, you probably remember Lavasoft Ad-Aware as one of the first big anti-spyware and anti-adware applications. Lavasoft Ad-Aware has become a complete antivirus and Internet security product, just as antivirus companies have added protection against spyware and adware to their own Internet security products.

This week we’re giving away 25 copies ($1200 of software in total!) of Lavasoft Ad-Aware Pro Security (1-year subscription) for Windows, an antivirus, antispyware, firewall, and Internet security application. Read on to learn more about this security application and learn how to win your free copy!

Antivirus & Anti-Spyware Protection

The core of any Internet security suite is an antivirus. Lavasoft Ad-Aware offers all the standard antivirus features you’d expect. The included antivirus provides protection against viruses, spyware, and other types of m alware, scanning the files you download and access in real-time to block any threats. There’s also a gaming mode you can enable to prevent any pop-ups from interfering with full-screen games — always a welcome feature for gamers and anyone who watches full-screen videos.

Lavasoft Ad-Aware Pro Security’s antivirus runs quietly in the background. I didn’t have to mess with a lot of settings, nor did I notice it slowing down my system – it got out of its way and did its job.

By default, Lavasoft Ad-Aware Pro Security automatically does a full scan of your system every Sunday at noon. Of course, you can change this setting or initiate a full scan whenever you want. Other standard features like quarantines, reports, and ignore lists that allow you to exclude files from being scanned are present. The Pro version we’re giving way also scans external storage devices such as USB sticks and removable hard drives when you insert them, ensuring your storage devices don’t have any viruses on them.

Lavasoft Ad-Aware Pro Security’s interface is slick and easy-to-use. Everything is just a few clicks away and nothing requires digging through complicated, arcane menus, as it does with some other antivirus programs. The default settings are sane and well-chosen.

Lavasoft Ad-Aware Pro Security also includes an intrusion protection system, which protects Lavasoft Ad-Aware Pro Security itself from being attacked and disabled by malicious software.

Staying Safe Online

Lavasoft Ad-Aware Pro Security includes features that keep you safe on the web, blocking malicious websites and protecting you from accessing them. There’s also a real-time web filter that watches your web traffic, analyzing it for signs of phishing and malware. While modern browsers have some anti-phishing and anti-malware features built in, Lavasoft Ad-Aware Pro Security provides an additional layer of protection.

Email Protection

Lavasoft Ad-Aware Pro Security also includes email protection. If you’re using a desktop email client such as Outlook, Thunderbird, or any other email client with a POP3 or IMAP account, Ad-Aware will scan your incoming email, detecting and blocking malware that tries to arrive via email. If you use a web-based email system like Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo! Mail, the web filter and real-time download scanning will protect you.

Identity Protection

Ad-Aware also bundles an identity protection feature, which is only available in the USA. Enable identity protection and Lavasoft will monitor your credit report, alerting you to important changes to your credit rating and identity information. These can be early signs of identity theft. A warning will allow you to take action and deal with the problem before the damage spreads.

Advanced Firewall

This produt also includes a firewall that’s more advanced than the one included with Windows. The firewall included with Windows provides protection from incoming connections, but doesn’t police outgoing connections by default. Enable the advanced firewall to control which applications are allowed to communicate with the Internet. You can set each network as trusted or untrusted and provide different application settings for each type of network. For example, you could prevent some applications from communicating over insecure public Wi-Fi networks but allow them to connect from your home network.

This feature is disabled by default, so you don’t have to worry about managing the firewall unless you want to get your hands a bit dirty.

Browser Toolbar

By default, Lavasoft Ad-Aware Pro Security installs a browser toolbar that integrates with Blekko, a lesser-known search engine that’s most famous for removing spammy websites from its index. The toolbar integrates with your browser to provide safety ratings for websites in Blekko’s search results. There’s also a button for quickly reporting websites as spam to Blekko.

If you don’t like the toolbar feature, you can easily uncheck it while uninstalling Lavasoft Ad-Aware Pro Security.

Free vs. Personal Security vs. Pro Security

Ad-Aware also offers an entirely free edition. Ad-Aware Free Antivirus+ includes Ad-Aware’s antivirus and anti-spyware features, which protect you from malicious downloads and other malicious files. The gaming mode feature is included too, so you don’t have to worry about notifications popping up.

Ad-Aware Personal Security adds the phishing protection and real-time web filter to help protect you online by detecting and blocking malicious websites.

Ad-Aware Pro Security, which we’re giving away, includes all of the above features as well as the advanced firewall, network protection, and email scanning features.

Conclusion

Lavasoft Ad-Aware is a solid antivirus, antispyware, and all-around Internet security application. It doesn’t use a lot of system resources and its interface is easy-to-use, unlike the interfaces some other antivirus applications have.

If you want to give Ad-Aware a try – or use it permanently, for free – you can download the Ad-Aware Free Antivirus+ installer from Lavasoft’s website. As with all antivirus programs, ensure you uninstall other antivirus programs on your system first – using multiple antivirus programs at once can make your system unstable.

Interested in getting more features? We’re giving away 25 copies of Ad-Aware Pro Security – worth a total of $1200 – this week! Enter the giveaway below to have a chance at winning your copy!

How do I win a copy?

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This giveaway begins now and ends Saturday, Dec 1st. The winners will be selected at random and informed via email.

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