Power Eraser, Norton style, is now free (as in free)

CNet Download Blog - Norton's new Power Eraser goes free

“Norton Power Eraser is a new tool from Symantec that the company says is the home user's last, best hope for eradicating an aggressive malware infection. Power Eraser is free …

By making Power Eraser free, the company hopes to draw in users who have been scared off by years of bad experiences and who haven't given the Norton suites a chance since the programs' turnaround in the 2009 versions. Although Power Eraser represents an aggressive approach towards helping infected consumers, the suites have also been improved in other ways. …”

Norton Power Eraser 1.5.0.42

“Norton Power Eraser target and eliminate virus that regular virus scan can't detect. Norton Power Eraser uses aggressive methods to detect these threats, there is a risk that it can select some legitimate programs for removal. You should use this tool very carefully, and only after you have exhausted other options. …”

Say what you will about Symantec/Norton, they do have a great deal of experience in the malware space, so a really free tool from them is a tool that might be worth of addition to your utility tool belt.

This is a no-install portable utility that seemed to run just fine on my Win7 x32 box. It ran, scanned and then went away when I was done with it (i.e. no services, etc spawned). BUT BE CAREFUL. This tool, as the above text very clearly says, isn’t for the casual user. That it can, and will, identify things it finds “bad” which are in-fact ok (i.e. false positives).