Were Lavasoft's buyers once on its hit list?

Anti-spyware company Lavasoft AB is now owned by a set of online entrepreneurs who have been linked with misleading websites. The Montreal-based entrepreneurs, who purchased the company's assets in January, have previously been accused of selling the free versions of Lavasoft products to unwitting internet users as recently as …

[dotdavid]

AdAware

Used to be cream of the crop, but last time I checked a lot less so now. For ages I've been recommending a combination of MalwareBytes and Spybot S&D to spyware-afflicted friends and family.

[Alex Walsh]

Nice bit of investigative journalism there. Try not to let it happen again or we might get unrealistic expectations.

[Major N]

Interesting...

I wasn't aware that the business had passed into such shady hands... I shall stop using and reccommending this software now.

[Anonymous Coward]

And I as well.

So much for using & recommending their products. NEVER again.

[Reading Your E-mail]

"We decided to buy Lavasoft because of its core technology, its loyal user base and the belief that with the right investment – the company can once more rise to its true potential,"

Loyal user base - Not any more

True potential - Start charging through the nose for it

-> Uninstalled.....

[Captain Scarlet]

Has anyone ever purchased Ad-Aware from Lavasoft?

Might be why they sold out because lots of people used it but no-one upgraded to their paid product (Including me, Shame on Me!).

[tmTM]

Good stuff

I abandoned Ad Aware some time ago, but now I wouldn't touch them with a 10ft barge pole.

no doubt they will block some malware of competitors but allow everything to do with their new owners through the net, and most likely install some with updates as well.

[Alan Brown]

The Guardian also noticed - but not the "why"

There have been comments there over the last 9 months that it's been letting things through that it shouldn't...

[Anonymous Coward]

Used to love it,,,,

But its been a well below par product for years. MalwareBytes is now our choice here with SpyBot SD when we 'have to' Spybot is getting a bit cranky and starting to cause us as many issues as it fixes. In comparison we have a site licence fo MBAM as its the mutts.

[sjones199]

"PC Magazine Editors' Ratings (out of 5 possible)

2003 4/5 EDITORS' CHOICE AWARD

v1.2 2004 4/5

v1.3 2005 3/5

v1.4 2005 2.5/5

v1.5 2008 1.5/5

In January 2008, PC Magazine, after giving Spybot Search & Destroy 1.5 a score of just 1.5 out of 5, elected it as one of the worst tech products of the first quarter of 2008 and called its malware cleaning-up skills mediocre."

So, started out good, but now is little more than a year four IT degree project!

Superantispyware is now the best choice as a backup to your main antispyware product (Malwarebytes).

[banjomike]

Hm, about time...

...I've oftern wondered why the dubious brigade never tried to launch a "proper" product and then, after a few years, use it to dump crap onto the users. This might be the plan here.

[Da Weezil]

Sorry.. credibility lost... Uninstalled....

[LowRez]

Very good investigation. Thanks for the heads up.

[Anonymous Coward]

Final nail in the coffin...

...for Lavasoft as far as I am concerned. Sad to see the pioneers of ad blocking software fade away and then hijacked by a bunch of scumbag internet "marketeers" (or should that be racketeers?)

Malwarebytes Pro is now the bees knees by a large margin. I have tested it a few times on live malware links and together with a good basic hips free firewall like Privatefirewall the combination stops absolutely everything in its tracks including Zeus. I also found that KIS 2012 is also excellent as a complete suite for those clients that need a "set and forget" solution.

[jason 7]

Malwarebytes, not bad but not perfect.

Still misses a lot of stuff. You run Malwarebytes on a heavily infected HDD (no point running it on the infected PC, too late) and let it clean off say 43 items.

Then run it again and see what happens. And again....

Most folks will only run it once and think themselves clean. Then after three runs, run MSSE or Combofix and see that another dozen items crop up.

Its not perfect. Yes its worth using but not on its own. You need to use at least three products.

However, by the time you have run 3-4 full scans you may as well have rebuilt the PC from scratch.

Havent bothered with AdAware in years. As for Spybot S&D, christ, is there still a market for software that looks like it was designed in 1998? Lazzzyyyyyyyyyy!

[Babai]

Stop going to nasty sites

[jason 7]

Not nasty sites usually.

The organised crime gangs behind this stuff now seem to target sites that more affluent web users would go to.

Cruise sites, holiday sites and finance sites seem very popular. No point putting drive-by virus stuff in free porn sites.

No they want the less confident users that they can terrify into typing their credit card details.