Ad-Aware Pro Security 10.5

The man window for Ad-Aware Pro Security 10.5 contains all the same elements that are present in Ad-Aware Free Antivirus+ 10.5. The big difference is that all of the components in the Advanced Protection area are available in the Pro edition, while the free edition offers only Safe Browsing.

Ad-Aware Pro adds email protection, but that doesn't mean antispam. Rather, it handles malicious and fraudulent messages.

The Pro edition offers the same real-time antivirus protection and on-demand scanning as are found in Ad-Aware Free.

In testing, the Pro-only "Shop & Bank Safely Online" feature was quite successful at blocking access to known malware-hosting URLs.

The Advanced Firewall component isn't installed until the first time you attempt to turn it on. Installation is quick when you do request it.

Three advanced firewall features aren't enabled by default. You'll definitely want to turn on the Intrusion Detection System and Boot Time Protection. For testing I enabled all three.

For most programs Ad-Aware defaults to allowing all outbound connections and blocking all inbound connections.

If you want the firewall to ask you what to do when it encounters an unknown program, you need to change the main firewall rule, the one for "any other application."

Ad-Aware's firewall event notifications pop up in the middle of the screen and require a response, but they only appear if you actively change the firewall's configuration to enable them.

Leak test programs attempt to evade simple program control like that implemented by Ad-Aware. In testing, it only caught a couple of the leak test utilities I tried.

When I tested Ad-Aware's ability to block exploit attacks, the antivirus kicked in to block exploit-related files.

Ad-Aware only detected about one eighth of the exploits I used in testing. It identified all of the exploits it did detect by name, but the only way to see that name was to look in Quarantine.

Ad-Aware Pro proved to be much more effective than the free edition in my antiphishing test. It didn’t come close to Norton's detection rate, but at least it blocked more than Internet Explorer 8 alone.

Unfortunately, for any site that the phishing protection missed, Ad-Aware's toolbar proclaimed "This page is SAFE!"

Like Ad-Aware Free, the Pro edition comes with a free (but limited) identity protection subscription. Naturally you're encouraged to upgrade to the $9.95/month premium edition.

Built into the Ad-Aware toolbar is a little utility that can remove items that launch at startup—even Ad-Aware's own items. Be careful, as there's no provision for restoring an item once you've removed it.

The Toolbar Cleaner lists all of the add-ons for all of your browsers. It takes just two clicks to eliminate them all, with no provision to restore them. Needless to say, that would be a bad idea.