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Keeping your computer safe with
Lavasoft Ad-aware

Ad-aware is software designed to detect and remove malicious or invasive software from your computer; it is primarily targeted at spyware and adware. It is free for personal use and can be downloaded here (download.com)

When you run ad-aware, you will be greeted with this screen. It is the main console from which you can run the scan and update the program. The first thing you should do every time you use the program is to run the web update. Ad-aware relies upon regular updates to be able to find and remove spyware. Run the web update by clicking on the icon of the world with a spyglass over it in the upper right corner.

Click connect

If a new update is available, click OK to download it.

The update should only take a few moments to download.

Once the download is complete, click 'finish' to complete the update process.

Once the update is complete, it is time to run the main program. Begin by clicking 'start' in the lower right corner.

The default scan mode is 'smart system-scan'. This is usually the best way to run the program. Proceed by clicking 'next'.

At this point the system scan will run. This usually takes anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes. As it runs, you will see all the files and registry keys being scanned streaming by in the window below.

When the scan is complete, it will show a list of problems found. For a badly infected system, I've seen these numbers reach into the hundreds of infected files and registry keys. Click 'next' to proceed to the 'scanning results' screen.

This screen will itemize all of the problems detected. In general we will want to remove every problem. Put a checkmark in every box by right-clicking on the first item, and in the drop-down menu click 'select all objects'.

Click 'next'

Click 'OK'

Ad-aware will now quarantine all of the bad items it found.

In some cases ad-aware will say that it was unable to fix a problem, and needs to be run again after a reboot to take care of it. Allow ad-aware to do this and restart your computer. If you have run ad-aware repeatedly and there is a specific problem that it is unable to fix, then it's time to call Computer Help