document updated 8 years ago, on Dec 29, 2015
There are some live-USBs / live-CDs that do virus removal. There is a real advantage to this — they run outside of the infected system, so even if the system is rootkitted, or unable to boot, the live-USB will still work.
My hope is to find ones that are extremely easy to use, even for your grandma, so that we can give them to customers of FreeGeek and they can do the spyware-removal themselves.
Ease of use
- Avira
- downsides: the boot menu is intimidating/confusing for new users; it always boots up in German (though it's easy to switch to English)
- upsides: once it gets past the boot menu, it's very easy to use
- AVG
- downsides: text menus throughout; the boot menu is intimidating/confusing for new users
- upsides: if you choose the default menu selection every time, it takes you to the virus scanner
- BitDefender
- Very easy to use. Graphical and everything.
- F-Secure
- It doesn't have a graphical UI like BitDefender, but it's still very straightforward.
Others
- CDs that contain several different anti-virus programs
- not so easy to use?
- more
- more