Aware Plus Adds Features Above The Free Version–But Is It Better?
The Ad-Aware series of products have long been known primarily for Ad-Aware Free, the free piece of anti-spyware software. But it also has the for-pay Ad-Aware Plus ($27 for a one-year, single-user license) as well, which includes anti-virus capabilities. Ad-Aware Plus protects against viruses and spyware, but it’s not clear that it’s worth buying when so many solid anti-virus programs are free. As with the Free version, Ad-Aware Plus also scans for spyware, in addition to viruses. The new version includes several types of heuristic detection, which protects you by examining complex system behavior, rather than just looking for known malware signatures. If the program’s heuristics work as well as does the heuristics in other anti-malware software, it should provide better protection against emerging and unknown threats, as well as threats that are already known. Ad-Aware Plus’s virus protection certainly needs some improvement over its last version. PC World did not find the previous v
