Things must move very slowly at Lavasoft. The last 'The Eye' newletter was in January. I for one feel that in an industry like computer security, especially a rapidly evolving area like anti-spyware, an effective product is one that rapidly responds to new threats. Are Lavasoft customers to believe that the company is slow to respond to customer demands for this forum to re-open, slow to release issues of 'The Eye', slow to communicate with customers concerning when to expect the long awaited Ad-Aware 2006, but rapidly responding to the latest threats and making Ad-aware SE an effective anti-spyware solution?

[b]My opinion, based on facts, is that Lavasoft's Ad-aware SE is not a viable solution when compared to other alternatives available on the market. This conclusion is based on the fact that Webroot's Spysweeper releases updates far more frequently than Ad-aware, customer service agents readily available via telephone, and program updates occur on a far more frequent basis with Spysweeper. Furthermore, Ad-aware SE Pro costs $39.95 whereas Webroot's Spysweeper costs only $29.95, so in addition to being a more effective solution, it also seems to be a better value.

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I used Spysweeper merely for comparison purposes. I could have used other top solutions and arrived at the same conclusion for the same reasons.
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We all know that Lavasoft do not have the best customer support. This was becoming quite a vocal issue from many people before the forums went down before. As for being the best solution, as well as value for money, there are others which do outperform Ad-Aware on both these counts. There is also a popular freeware program ("SB S&D") which is updated regularly, has a good track record, and even has real-time resident protection. However, these issues do not matter as they will be removed from the forum when a member of staff stops relying on the kindness of volunteers to look after the forums for a few minutes and comes on themself briefly. Meow.

I do not understand what you mean by "...these issues do not matter..." It is my view, and I'm sure the view of many other customers, that these issue do matter. To many customers, I'm confident that these issues are all that matter.

I was implying they do not matter from the viewpoint of the Lavasoft staff.

Thanks for the clarification. I concur.

I Am Actuality Surprised the Thread has lasted this long.

There will be no censorship here... everyone is entitled to their opinion, as long as they express it in a civil manner, and the content confirms to the rules of this forum.

In response to the statements in this thread. We are working to improve in areas we have been lacking... and AAW 2006 IS on the horizon.... there is gonna be alot going on at Lavasoft in the next 6 months... thats all I can say at this point....

//Steve

I appreciate the response and the integrity of leaving this thread, and others like it, open. Nothing upsets me more than when forums set forth a TOS only to subsequently censor and remove thread that comply with that TOS requirment.

Regarding AAW 2006 IS being "on the horizon," Lavasoft reminds me too much of a former industry leader Diamond CS (DCS) to put much faith in them. DCS used to be the #1 Anti-trojan software on the market. However, they turned into a "has been" by perpetually enticing customers by talking about the next version knowing full well that there would be no next version. Any and all complaints were either removed or addressed as being frivolous. DCS has since discontinued the software line, left paying customers (some as recently as a month) without either software or a refund, and has transformed their company from a leader into the laughing stock of the computer security community. Sure there are still customers paying for their remaining products, but one only need look at the forum usage statistics to see that they are only a fraction of their former customer base. One only needs to read the forums and talk to security experts to learn that their remaining softwares are horribly underdeveloped and terribly insecure. My fear is that Lavasoft is going down the same path.

Therefore, talk of the next version of Ad-aware will fall on deaf ears. Lavasoft is being written off as a legitimate company in my book until they prove otherwise by showing me results, instead of merely talking about them.

That`s Refreshing! An open forum is a good thing

I agree with dallen AAW 2006 was announced back in 1/06 and we still haven't seen beta 1 yet!

The sad thing is, so far I am 1 for 1 in calling out software companies. I was among the first to correctly call DCS a fraud. I will not go that far with Lavasoft, just yet. I will say that one would be a fool to purchase either the Plus or Pro version now. The main difference I see between what Lavasoft is doing and what DCS did lies in the fact that the regular Ad-aware is free. If it weren't for that, I am afraid that the similarities would be scary. Initially, I thought, "Well...at least Lavasoft has a box for their 'new version,'" but then I realized that even DCS had a picture of the TDS-4 logo posted on their website." In the end, anyone can post a picture of what a product would look like. As it turned out, TDS-4 was fake. DCS had nothing up its sleeve in the way of software and pockets full of other people's money to show for it. Little short of highway robbery. At least Lavasoft has not charged people in advance for the supposed Ad-aware 2006, that would make this scenario almost an exact copy.