Flash Drive Virus Software

[cdcq12]

What would be a good virus software that I can install on a flash drive so that when I go to someone's house and they ask me to see if they have any viruses on their computer I can just insert the drive and scan? Is that even possible or is there something that you would suggest as a better solution? thanks!

[mjc]

http://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/clamwin_portable

[rio_bugarin]

mjc beat me by 2 seconds.

[Sylvander]

1. The best I've come across and used is...
Avast! Antivirus on-demand scanner run within a Puppy Linux environment.
I normally use that to scan the Windows partition, but it can be told to scan anything that a Puppy can see, and that includes pretty much everything on the PC on which it's running, or even a remote PC to which it is connected.

2. Using a Puppy operating system in a portable way on various computers is something I'm pretty sure can be done, but I've not yet done it; you'd need to find out how.
e.g.
(a) Any Puppy "live" optical disk can be run on any suitable PC [that's able to handle the hardware].
But when you run it as a bare "live" disk, you only have available the programs [e.g. xfprot antivirus scanner] that come natively included.
You would have that at the very least as you move from PC to PC.
xfprot is ok as a scanner, but that's all it does; no repairing/fixing, you'd need to do that yourself.

(b) But when you boot a "live" Puppy optical disk [DVD or CD], the 1st thing Puppy expects of you as you boot is to specify the mouse, keyboard, language, region etc for this PC.
You might then have either:
Portable Programs held on some storage media such as a Flash Drive, that could be run from there on any PC.
I have a number of these including ClamWinPortable.
Just running that right now under WINE to check it works [it does]. :)
OR...
Install Linux non-portable programs such as Avast.
I've done this on my own PC.
It could be installed whilst connected to ANY PC [easy and quick to do, and could then be run].
If you want it's then possible at shut-down to save all the configurations and installed software to a pup_save that is matched to that PC.
You might make a number of these [one for each PC], and as the Puppy [loaded from the optical disk] is booting, it will look for these and if it finds multiple files will ask which you want to use.
You choose the one matched to the PC on which you are running.
OR...
I think its easy to REMASTER the optical disk to include added programs, but I've not yet done that.
OR...
Install Windows Programs under WINE, and run those [done that].

(c) You could then [if you wanted to] install the Puppy [including all of its changes] to a Flash Drive [or whatever], and boot that instead of the optical disk [done that].
I guess that would then be matched to that hardware, but not sure, and I'm pretty sure there's a way to make it work on ANY PC.
Puppies are VERY versatile.

[cdcq12]

What about spyware and malware scanners?

[Sylvander]

Sounds like UBCD4Win may be what you want (http://www.ubcd4win.com/contents.htm).

It's possible to install that to a Flash Drive I believe, but I'd need to search for that info if you want it.

[PrntRhd]

Portable Applications sticky:
http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showthread.php?t=46483

Yes it needs updating

[mjc]

Portable Applications sticky:
http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showthread.php?t=46483

Yes it needs updating

Yeah...probably won't get around to doing that for a couple of weeks...still too busy with the garden and the county fair is this week.