Adaware, formerly known as Lavasoft, is a software development company that produces spyware and malware detection software, including Adaware. It operates as a subsidiary of Avanquest a division of Claranova. The company offers products Adaware Antivirus, Adaware Protect, Adware Safe Browser, Adware Privacy, Adware AdBlock, Adware PC Cleaner and Adware Drive Manager. Adaware's headquarters are in Montreal, Canada, having previously been located in Gothenburg, Sweden since 2002. Nicolas Stark and Ann-Christine Åkerlund established the company in Germany in 1999 with its flagship Adaware antivirus product. In 2011, Adware was acquired by the Solaria Fund, a private equity fund front for entrepreneurs Daniel Assouline and Michael Dadoun, who have been accused of selling software that is available for free, including Adaware antivirus prior to acquiring the company itself. Adaware antivirus An anti-spyware and anti-virus software program, Adaware Antivirus, according to its developer, detects and removes malware, spyware and adware, computer viruses, dialers, Trojans, bots, rootkits, data miners,, parasites, browser hijackers and tracking components. History Adaware antivirus was originally developed, as Ad-Aware, in 1999 to highlight web beacons inside of Internet Explorer. On many websites, users would see a tiny pixelated square next to each web beacon, warning the user that the computer's IP address and other non-essential information was being tracked by this website. Over time, Ad-Aware added the ability to block those beacons, or ads. In the 2008 Edition, Lavasoft bundled Ad-Aware Pro and Plus for the first time with an antivirus scanner, which used the Avira engine and this arrangement continued for a few years. Starting with Ad-Aware version 10, the Bitdefender antivirus engine was used instead. Reliability According to PC World Magazine, an older version of Ad-Aware, the Anniversary Edition, could locate only 83.6% of malware in a comparative test carried out by the security firm AV-TEST. However, it stated that no such tests have been run on the newest version. Neil J. Rubenking at PCMag performed a lab test on version 8.3, where Ad-Aware scored 9.2 points, beating the previous top score of 9.1. Market share In July 2013, Adaware Antivirus Free was listed as having been downloaded a total of 450 million times from the Lavasoft site, including over 387 million times from Download.com . According to OPSWAT, in January 2015, Ad-Aware had less than 1% of market share globally. Paid versions of the product are being competed from low-cost or free products, such as Microsoft