My college, in the interest of keeping the campus network as spy ware free as possible, strongly recommended students make use of Ad-Aware SE. This useful piece of software hunts out and then destroys spy ware and other unwanted guests that months of web surfing inevitably allow in to PC user's hard drives.

The software was free for students to download from my university's website. However, a quick check with the manufacturer's website (lavasoft.com) confirmed what I already speculated: the basic version of this nifty program is free to download.

Ad-Aware SE has always impressed me because of what a great job it does at sniffing out the spy ware on a PC. A deep scan of the main hard disk(s) usually reveals an astounding number of what the program dubs critical objects.

Beyond this program's ability to accurately find a lot of junk is its level of user-friendliness. On initial start-up, Ad-Aware asks if you would like to update definition files (also free). Assuming you opt to update, Ad-Aware then goes to work checking for and downloading the latest patches and definition files. Once update is complete, the next screen prompts you to start the system scan. That's all there is to itfor now. Ad-Aware will go to work checking over every directory on your hard drive and rooting out that which does not belong. Upon completion of the scan, Ad-Aware gives you the option to delete the critical objects it discovered. With your permission, it deletes the junk it found, and that's it; you're done!

Compared to other complicated and often costly spy ware removal tools that I've used, Ad-Aware SE is by far the best. It's budget friendly, accurate, and easy to use. All these features combine to make Ad-Aware SE stand-out contender in the PC-security software arena.

Learn more about this author, James Richardson.
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