What's your favourite productive app/program to install

Hazel123 said:

Am I the only one that uses Panda USB vaccine?

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Never heard of it!

Hazel123 said:

Am I the only one that uses Panda USB vaccine?

Click to expand...

Hazel, I've never heard of it. What do you use it FOR?

Dan

VLC media player, VS Code, MAMP/XAMPP, Ms office/libre office, firefox and Google Earth Pro.

Some that havent yet been mentioned
dism++
wimlib
aomei part assist ( in addition to diskgenius which has been mentioned )
regworkshop
shadowcopyview
faststone capture
WinNtSetup

Edwin said:

Never heard of it!

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Wisewiz said:

Hazel, I've never heard of it. What do you use it FOR?

Dan

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It's just a little program that "vaccinates" any usb that's inserted into the computer. Something to do with stopping the autorun.inf file running and preventing it being changed. So a virus can't jump from the usb to the computer. It also gives you the option to "vaccinate" the computer (which I believe can just be done manually anyway) by preventing autorun/usb's automatically opening when inserted.

The usb stick, once vaccinated, can't pass viruses between computers. Apparently it can still get a virus but it sits in the .inf file and can't jump from there to the computer.

I've been using it for years. Ever since I put an infected usb stick into a laptop with a trojan on it and could have infected the whole network. Thankfully my antivirus stopped it. But it was a particularly nasty trojan. I had had it in a dead laptop I was fixing to try and wipe the drive but it wouldn't run or do anything, yet somehow the trojan got onto the usb.

It hasn't been updated since 2009 ......assume it's still safe to use!

Thanks for that information, @Hazel123. But if it hasn't been updated since 2009, although it may still be safe to use, it may not be effective.

It probably hasn’t been updated since 2009 because that’s about when Microsoft killed AutoRun for USB drives.

Ok. So if it still vaccinates usb drives presumably that still stops them picking up a virus from one computer and passing it to another?

Bleeping computer still have the download for it and say for Windows 7, 8 and 10

@pseymour knows a LOT more about this than I ever will, but I would think that if a USB stick can be written TO and copied/run FROM, an infection can do those things.

Firefox Extensions:
Turbo Download Manager (3rd edition)
uBlock Origin
SingleFile

Hazel123 said:

Yes I did google after posting that. But it helps to get a real world description and the text on their site was tiny!

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Google does give a real world description of it, albeit it's only a very short one. Tiny text is not a problem in Firefox browser, as you can press Ctrl++ and Ctrl+- to change the zoom level; press Ctrl+0 to reset the zoom back to 100%.

Wisewiz said:

@pseymour knows a LOT more about this than I ever will, but I would think that if a USB stick can be written TO and copied/run FROM, an infection can do those things.

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Yes I guess if it was an infected file it could still be copied to a computer. I seem to remember it was viruses that jump on were supposed to sit in the .inf file and then jump onto another computer as soon as the usb was plugged in. But the vaccine stops them doing that so they stay on the usb stick in the .inf file.

Which is exactly what happened with that trojan. The usb stick itself only had linux on. But a windows trojan from the defunct laptop I put it on, went straight onto the usb stick and straight onto the next computer it was plugged into. Without anything being copied or installed. That's when I started using the Panda vaccine usb program.

It was Win32.silly worm. I will never forget!

@Hazel123 The Autorun.inf was responsible for automatically executing whatever malware was on the drive. It was a super common infection method in the early 2000s, which is why Microsoft disabled that functionality for USB drives. That's all Panda's utility is doing: disabling AutoRun. You can still pass malicious files back and forth between a flash drive and a PC; it just won't be executed automatically. But that is true without Panda's utility also, since 2009-ish.

Panda's own page for the utility says: "The drive can otherwise be used normally and files (even malware) copied to/from it, but they will be prevented from opening automatically."

Thank you. Yes they can't automatically be passed on. It was only about 6 or 7 years ago that happened with me though. The computer itself, that the worm/trojan came from was much older than that and clearly hadn't been turned on for some years. But it still jumped straight onto the next computer it was plugged into (Windows 10).

So are you saying it's not necessary any more?

pseymour said:

@Hazel123 The Autorun.inf was responsible for automatically executing whatever malware was on the drive. It was a super common infection method in the early 2000s, which is why Microsoft disabled that functionality for USB drives. That's all Panda's utility is doing: disabling AutoRun. You can still pass malicious files back and forth between a flash drive and a PC; it just won't be executed automatically. But that is true without Panda's utility also, since 2009-ish.

Panda's own page for the utility says: "The drive can otherwise be used normally and files (even malware) copied to/from it, but they will be prevented from opening automatically."

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It should be noted that, even though it is true that AutoRun has been restricted to prevent it from opening automatically by default since Windows 7, the user can still choose to let it be opened automatically, i.e. by changing the AutoPlay setting specifically for this purpose. Using AutoPlay and AutoRun in Windows 10 (Article from SamLogic)

P.S., here are some additional links about this particular subject:

• Turn On or Off AutoPlay in Windows 11 Tutorial

• AutoPlay Shortcut - Create

P.P.S, in short, you might still get infected if you have AutoPlay set to enabled (default) and you have set Software and games to Install or run program from your media (albeit the default setting for this specific option is Ask me every time).

Thanks. So the panda vaccine basically just disables auto play on the computer (when you select it to “vaccinate” the computer) presumably. And does the same to a usb stick. Presumably that protects from user error if it’s been turned on.

I’m curious as to how that worm/trojan managed to get onto a Windows 10 laptop (which had been clean installed). I seem to remember the av didn’t block it but removed it a few seconds after the usb stick was inserted.

Sorry - this is going off topic

Not too many native/UWP apps in anybody's lists! That's gotta tell ya sumpthin!