USB Guardian is a free security program for the Windows operating system that can add the protection from threats that use removable devices as their attack vector. The program basically runs silently in the system background after installation. It will automatically scan USB flash drives that are connected to the computer system.

USB Guardian isolates autorun directives on the removable device. This blocks any program from being executed after connecting the device to the PC.

The security software then scans the autorun.inf file on the flash drive to find out if it references additional files that might be dangerous to the computer system. The executable files that are found will also be locked automatically.

The user is free to use the USB flash drive from that point on as usual. The locked files on the other hand are not accessible since they are still locked by USB Guardian. The user can use the program interface to unlock files in case they are harmless. It is furthermore possible to use the interface to delete the locked files and to configure program options like enabling the autostart of USB Guardian.

USB Guardian is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Microsoft Windows operating system. The program tries to install a toolbar during installation. This toolbar is not required to run the program. The download of USB Guardian is provided at the developer’s website.

The device integrity and size test will write files with a size of one Gigabyte to the selected storage device. All files that are written to the device will be named x.h2w with x starting with 1 and counting up. The software will then verify the files that have been written to the medium and display a report once the verification has been completed.

The program will display a rating and a detailed report on the data that was written correctly and incorrectly. The tool can for example be used to test if the advertised capacity of the USB flash drive or hard drive has the correct size.

H2testw is compatible with Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 and does not require administrative rights.

Existing rules can be modified or removed and new rules added. Supported are file and folders names plus the wildcard. It is theoretically possible to clean all files that are stored on USB flash drives by adding a *.* rule. This could be interesting for users who have to clean a lot of USB flash drives or want to work with empty drives on a specific computer system.

The software program will run hidden and cleanup connected USB flash drives automatically. These settings can be changed in the options of the program so that a confirmation is required before the data is deleted on connected USB flash drives.

USB Drive Fresher is a free software program for the Windows operating system. It is available for download at the developer’s website. Supported operating systems are Windows XP, Windows Vista and several other Microsoft operating system. It is likely that the program will also run under Windows 7.

A tool that can flip the bit and should work with most usb flash drives is Lexar’s USB format tool. It is a portable tool that has been designed for Lexar USB drives but it works with other brands as well. The main interface can not only be used to flip the removable bit but also to format the usb drive, set a volume label and a partition to be bootable. You only need to press the flip removable bit button if you want to prepare the flash drive for use with multiple partitions. The drive has to be removed and connected again to the computer system afterwards.

It should be noted that Lexar USB Format (via Shell City) will not partition the usb flash drive which has to be done with other tools. For that you can use the build in tools in the operating system. Read Joshua’s System Partitioning With Vista article to find out how to do that in Windows Vista. A more universal software is the gParted Live CD which can be booted from any computer system.

Another option to create multiple USB stick partitions has been discussed before at Ghacks. The process involves editing the Windows Registry and has the disadvantage that the add-on partitions are only visible on that computer system.

Computer vaccination referring to disabling autorun completely from removable media like usb flash drives or optical drives like CDs or DVD drives. To enable the protection of the computer system from programs that are auto-executed if usb flash drives or CDs or DVDs are inserted into the computer drives.

A click on vaccinate computer will immediately disable autorun on the computer system. The USB drive vaccination option on the other hand will disable autorun from selected usb flash drives. The drives have to be connected to the computer system before the computer can be protected. Every connected usb flash drive will be listed in a pulldown menu. A click on vaccinate usb will prevent autorun from being executed from that usb flash drive.

It should be noted that it is not possible to undo the autorun protection of a selected usb flash drive in the computer system using the security software. Another limitation is that it will only work on usb flash drives that have been formatted with the FAT or FAT32 file system.

Panda Research USB Vaccine increases the security of a computer system in regards to usb flash drives and other media with autorun capabilities. The security software has been tested under Windows Vista, Windows XP and even Windows 2000. It will work on all

If you already have an USB flash drive and want to know how it compares you can test the speed of it with the free version of HD Tune which can benchmark USB drives as well. The free version will only test the read speed and access time but it should give a good impression of the capabilities of the device at hand.

To make the test accurate you should set the test speed to Accurate in the benchmark options. The last two steps are to select the USB flash drive from the pulldown menu at the top and to click on start to start the benchmark.

Those speed differences are really interesting. It’s probably a good idea to research USB flash drives extensively before buying one. What’s your experience with those drives ?