Goodbye Adaware, with regret

I am posting this here as I hope it will catch the attention of Lavasoft employees. This post is intended as feedback.



For many years successive versions of Ad-Aware have been a staple part of my computer's protection. Ever since an early version removed some annoying pop-up ads from my computer, I have regarded Ad-Aware as an excellent program and enthusiastically recommended it to others. No computer of mine was without it. Now, though, I have reluctantly given up on this product and uninstalled it. Why?



Two reasons. First, the newer versions take forever to load for the first time after a restart. Second, the updating process is not only also very slow, but fraught with problems - updates often don't install properly and sometimes freeze the program. After wasting a lot of time, reinstalling the program (now weighing in at over 100 MB!) and giving it a generous number of last chances, I have got to the point where I find Ad-Aware is simply too much trouble. I have, for the time being at least, given up on it.



It seems churlish to moan about a free program. I have always been grateful (and still am) that companies like Lavasoft provide a free tool to keep one's computer clear of adware and other nasties. I would love to be able to blame Windows Vista - after all that dreadful OS is responsible for many, many problems - but earlier versions of Ad-Aware worked OK with Vista and I am forced to concede that the newer, inflated versions of this program are to blame for the drop in performance.



I will be checking from time to time to see if things have improved, but for the time being I regretfully say goodbye to Lavasoft, and thanks for what in the past was a superb and useful program.



Neil