Antivirus software vendor ESET has just released a new malware scanner designed to detect and remove different types of rogue applications from your computer. Rogue applications are those programs that are malicious in nature but pretend to be harmless or even useful, such as fake anti virus programs (that deceives unsuspecting users into paying for fake or simulated removal of malware), and scareware (software products that produce frivolous and alarming warnings or threat notices for fictitious or useless commercial firewall and registry cleaner software).
Aside from detecting and cleaning rogue software, ESET Rogue Application Remover is also capable of reverting changes made by the rogue applications in Windows registry. By design, ERAR focuses mostly on rogue applications that affect the operating system in a negative way and that are difficult to remove by our products. ESET Rogue Application Remover, however, should not be considered a substitute for regular antivirus and antimalware software.
ESET Rogue Application Remover is a small program, less than 3MB in size, which is impressive. ERAR must be run with elevated administrator rights either in normal or safe mode. Just right click on the executable file and choose “Run as Adminisrator”. Internet connection is recommended for better detection efficiency and accuracy but also for automatic submission of detected files to ESET's viruslab when approved by the user.
Upon running, ERAR will scan your running processes and kill any that it perceives to be a malware. I use a program called Shutdown Guard to prevent programs from unceremoniously shutting down Windows. ERAR perceived it as a threat and killed the program without warning. However, it was decent enough to ask before trying to delete the program. ERAR will ask your permission before each clean operation, so make sure you are there. Scanning is very fast, so you don’t have to wait too long.
ERAR also supports restoration of quarantined objects using the /r switch. For a complete list of supported options, run it with the /? switch.
Unlike ESET’s other products, ESET Rogue Application Remover is free.
[via Wilders Security and JKwebtalks]
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