Ad-aware Guide

On this guide we will learn how to use the ad-aware program in order to eliminate spyware from our PC.

The first thing to do is download the Ad-aware last version: Download Ad-aware.

Once we’ve downloaded it, we go ahead and execute it. We will get this screen.

As you can see, we are asked to enter a serial number. Nothing to worry about, because by clicking Cancel we can get Ad-aware’s free version. In the next image, we see we are usising the free Ad-aware license.

Now we will set up Ad-aware’s language. We click on Settings and on Language File we’ve got a drop-down list. We click on it and see there’s only the English language.

Then we go to Ad-aware’s official site and see that for the moment the Ad-aware’s translated files are not available until 2007. You can read this on this link FAQ Ad-aware. So right now we’ll need to work with the English version.

Now we will update ad-aware so that it will detect the last spywares on the market.

We go to Status-gt; Main Status and on the Update Status section we click on Update.

Ad-aware shown a window reading that the definitions file is obsolete and asks whether we want to update it. We click on Yes.

Now Ad-aware shows us a list with the available updates for our version. We will select all of them and then click on Download.

Once all of the updates have downloaded, we will see a window reading that the update has been completed.

Now we can see that Ad-aware is being updated. Right beside Last Update we see the last update time.

Now that we already have updated Ad-aware, we will go ahead and detect spywares.

We click on Scan-gt; Scan Mode. We see many options here.

The Smart Scan option makes an analysis of the critical parts of the system where we may find spyware.

The Full Scan option analizes the complete system.

The Custom Scan option allowes you to choose which parts of the system you want to scan.

We choose the Smart Scan option and click on Scan.

We get a screen showing the scan progress.

Once the scan has finnished, Ad-aware shows us the results divided into several tabs.

Critical Objects: shows those elements which are considered to be critical for our privacy and must be eliminated.

Privacy Objects: shows those elements which are realted to our privacy, but wich are not necessarily dangerous. You can delete them to your convenience.

Once you choose wat you want, you click on Finish.

In this case, there is a window indicating we have not chosen any element to be eliminated and it asks for confirmation.

We click on Yes and get a scan summary.

Following these simple steps you’ll be able to eliminate spywares from your computer by using Ad-aware.