Photo by molotalk

In this roundup of usb flash drive freeware I will be looking at 10 applications to help manage and secure your portable drives. This is not a list of portable apps, rather it’s a list of freeware usb related tools.

1. Usb Write Protector

This simple software allows you to write protect your pen drive to ensure nothing gets written to it. This can give protection from usb malware that are carried from computer to computer by portable drives.

Usb WriteProtector

2. Thumbscrew Usb Write Blocker

Another write blocker but this one sits in your system tray and allows you to switch usb drive writes on or off.

ThumbScrew Usb Write Blocker

3. Usb Devices View

This great bit of software allows you to view all the usb devices that are connected or have been connected to your computer. You can also disconnect, disable and uninstall drives. Autoplay can be switched on and off and you can view which drive letters if any are allocated to your removal media.

Nirsoft have lots of other usefull freeware, it is well worth having a look around on their website.

Usb Devices View

4. Usb Blocker

Rather obviously, usb blocker can stop usb drives working. This may be useful if you run an internet cafe and wish to prohibit removable media.

Usb Blocker

5. Usb Firewall

Usb firewall claims to monitor autorun.inf files. This is the file on your pen drive that runs automatically when inserted and subsequentley runs other programs.  Many viruses run from this autorun.inf file from infected usb sticks. This program should help stop this by asking if you want to stop the infected files from being run.

Usb Firewall

6. Pocket App Review Eject Usb

Another App that will allow you to remove your usb thumb drive. It claims to gracefully close any open apps relating to your thumb drive so you can remove it.

Unfortunately my system wouldn’t allow it to run, but a this video from Pocket App Review shows it off nicely.

PAR Eject USB

7. Usb Disk Ejector

A very similar program that provides an easy way to safely remove your flash media is USB Disk Ejector. Fire up the app, double click your pen drive then remove. Easy.

Usb Disk Ejector

8. Flash Drive Reminder

When this program is run it adds the autoplay entry that you can see at the top of the following picture. When you select this entry after insering your pen drive the software will pop up and remind you to remove it if you log off the computer. The software can be ran in two modes- standard  or quiet and is best explained on their website.

Flash Drive Reminder

9. Arpantech IKill

Ikill is similar to usb firewall in that it waits for an autorun.inf to be executed. It then gives you the option to disallow the programs that are launched from this file. This can again possibly save you from a virus infection. You also have the option to scan the autorun.inf files on demand and start with windows  – as you can see from the pic.

Arpantech Ikill

10. UsbVirusscan

If your virus checker will allow command line scanning then usbvirusscan could be very handy, especially if you use a pen drive a lot. When a usb drive is inserted and you have this program running it will run any program you wish (from a command line). The only tricky bit is that you need to edit a .bat file to get it to work. The software is called UsbVirusscan however as it is meant to be used to run a virus scan from the command line. It is not a virus scanner in it’s own right but can be used to run any programs. A great review of this freeware as well as some help for configuring it can be found at RaymondCC.

Usb Virus Scan

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