adaware

Lavasoft

Vendor

Ad-Aware was, for a period in the early 2000s, one of the most widely installed security tools in the world. Made by Lavasoft in Gothenburg, Sweden, it addressed a problem conventional antivirus then ignored — spyware and adware bundled with free software — and for many people it was the second scanner they ran after their antivirus missed something. The company was acquired by the French software group Avanquest, part of Claranova, and rebranded as adaware in 2016. The product listed here, adaware antivirus, is the descendant of that line, now a conventional antivirus rather than the specialist anti-spyware tool the name was built on. Its position in the market today is much smaller than its name recognition suggests, and it appears in the independent laboratory cycles far less often than it once did.

Country: Sweden
Headquarters: Montreal, Canada
Year Established: 1999
Employees: 100
Customers: —
Users: 300M users (2026)Vendor states: Vendor website
Revenue: —
Website: https://www.adaware.com/
Status: Acquired
Acquired by: Avanquest Software

Support locations

Support in 4 countries on 2 continents

Headquarters · Montreal, Canada Support location Country with support

North America1 country: Canada · Montreal
Europe3 countries: France · ParisGermany · HamburgPoland · Krakow

Where the vendor offers local support — a support centre, an office it lists, or a local support line (shown as the country alone) — from the vendor’s own site. Partners and resellers are not counted.

Products

Product	Category	Market	Platform & Version	Free / Paid
adaware antivirus	Home Antimalware	Consumer	Windows:12.7.1055.0	Paid

Certifications

OESIS Framework Support

Supportedadaware antivirus

OPSWAT Certified Security Application

Platinumadaware antivirus

Recent test results

—

Recent changes

2026-10-19Support location: Hamburg, DE
2026-10-19Support location: Krakow, PL
2026-10-19Support location: Paris, FR
2026-10-18Support location: Montreal, CA
2026-10-17Users: 300M users (2026, from the vendor's website)
2026-09-29Users: 300M users (2026, from the vendor's website)
2026-09-23Email Protection: built in adaware antivirus
2026-09-23Host Firewall: built in adaware antivirus
2026-09-22Listed in Home Antimalware adaware antivirus
2026-09-20Price: USD 49.99 yearly adaware antivirus
2026-09-19Sold to: Consumer adaware antivirus
2026-09-17Vendor status: Acquired
2026-09-16Employees: 100
2026-09-09New version: 12.7.1055.0 (Windows) adaware antivirus
2026-09-04Listed in Network Firewall adaware antivirus

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