Posted: October 19, 2016 by

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As part of our mission to get more aggressive in the detection of Potentially Unwanted Programs (PUPs) we are announcing the acquisition of AdwCleaner.

As many of you have already seen, last week I blogged that we would be getting more aggressive in the detection of Potentially Unwanted Programs, or “PUPs” as we call them.

I’d like to announce that we’re advancing that mission with the acquisition of AdwCleaner.

AdwCleaner is a popular product, installed over 200 million times, and used by consumers, technicians, and enterprises all over the globe to remove adware, browser hijackers, other potentially unwanted programs, and more. As I write this, it averages more than 200,000 downloads per day and has grown quickly across the world. AdwCleaner released its sixth major version in 2016. Jérôme Boursier and Corentin Chepeau, two of the company’s founders will now join Malwarebytes in engineering and research roles.

Short term, we will work to give the product a facelift and enhance its detection ability. Over a longer period, we hope to learn from and integrate the technology into our flagship product, Malwarebytes Anti-Malware. AdwCleaner will remain free as a standalone product.

Consumers and businesses download AdwCleaner more than 200,000 times per day, making it one of the most downloaded products on many sites. Installed around 200 million times, AdwCleaner has proven effective against bloatware, questionable software and specific types of malware.

As a reminder, you can read more about our PUP classification criteria here! Find more detail in TechCrunch’s take on today’s acquisition.

Learn more about AdwCleaner: https://www.malwarebytes.com/adwcleaner_welcome/.

Download the free version of AdwCleaner: https://www.malwarebytes.com/adwcleaner/.