Dr.Web CureIT

Dr.Web CureIt! is a free, portable antivirus scanner from Doctor Web. It does not install on your system and does not provide real time protection. Instead, you download a single EXE file, run it, and scan your computer for viruses, trojans, rootkits, adware, and other malware. It works on Windows.

What it does

Download the file, double-click it, and click Start Scanning. The program checks your RAM, boot sectors, startup items, and all files on disk against Dr.Web's virus database. The database is baked into the executable itself, so there is no separate update step. To get fresh definitions, you download a new copy of the program from the Dr.Web website.

After the scan finishes, you see a list of detected threats with recommended actions: remove, cure, quarantine, or ignore. You pick the action for each item and click Neutralize. The whole process takes anywhere from 20 minutes to a few hours depending on how much data is on the disk. You can also run a quick scan that only checks critical system areas, or a custom scan targeting specific folders.

Because it runs as a standalone executable, Dr.Web CureIt! is particularly useful on machines that are already infected. You can put it on a USB drive, plug it into the compromised computer, and scan without needing an internet connection or a working antivirus installation.

Who it is for

I keep Dr.Web CureIt! on a USB stick as a second opinion scanner. When someone tells me their antivirus found nothing but the computer still behaves strangely, this is what I run. It catches things that resident antivirus programs sometimes miss, and the fact that it needs no installation makes it perfect for already compromised systems. It is not a replacement for a full antivirus, but as an emergency tool it is hard to beat.