Help with choosing a U3 enabled flash drive

After one of my computers recently became seriously infected with viruses and the only way to completely get rid of them being a reformat as quite a few of the OS files and Anti virus files being infected, I saw that you could buy a U3 enabled flash drive which you can get a copy of Avast for.

The problem now though is that the only u3 enabled drives that I can see on the market DO NOT have a write protect switch therefore the anti virus files there could equally be infected, so if anyone knows of any with such a switch could you let me know?

Cheers :telephone:

I don't know much about u3 flash drives but it sounds more like you need some decent internet security..kaspersky is very good..i've been using it for a couple of months now.

Or an operating system that doesn't have the virus feature built in.

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Originally Posted by staffsMike

I don't know much about u3 flash drives but it sounds more like you need some decent internet security..kaspersky is very good..i've been using it for a couple of months now.

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I was actually looking at free to use ones for personal machines. Main reason is because I have a few computers of my own then all my uncles, aunts, and cousins to fix when they die!
Kaspersky to buy would be VERY expensive for all these computers!

I'm not aware that any flash drive has a write protect, but the password-protected, encrypted files would be hard to infect on a U3 drive.

AVG free version is a pretty good anti-virus. Better than Avast IMO.

Well I bought a 3 user liscence of kaspersky net sucruity for £15 off amazon..

but avg and zone alarm works quite well as a free alternative. Are you using any firewalls?

It just seems like what you want to do is a very difficult way around a problem which should be avoidable in the first place...







..by not going on so much porn!! ;) :p

Easiest way to do it is a USB-SD card reader and a SD card (which have a switch on for write protect) :)

http://www.ledshoppe.com/Product/com/CA2018.htm
From our friends at the LED shoppe :D

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Originally Posted by Thorsson

AVG free version is a pretty good anti-virus. Better than Avast IMO.

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I'll second that.

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Originally Posted by Agent

Easiest way to do it is a USB-SD card reader and a SD card (which have a switch on for write protect) :)

http://www.ledshoppe.com/Product/com/CA2018.htm
From our friends at the LED shoppe :D

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Similar card reader available at Poundland.

I bought one some time ago but not used and when I last looked (last week) were back in stock.

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Originally Posted by amjedm

Similar card reader available at Poundland.

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Cheers for that mate, have wanted one for a while. Will pop in when im up town next :)

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Originally Posted by Agent

Cheers for that mate, have wanted one for a while. Will pop in when im up town next :)

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You're welcome.

I popped in at lunchtime to look for other bargains and had a quick look at the card reader - couldn't see a write protect button :(. Will see if I can find the card reader I have at home.

I've not come across a card reader with write protect on, but SD cards have a little switch that's handy sometimes :)

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Originally Posted by Agent

I've not come across a card reader with write protect on, but SD cards have a little switch that's handy sometimes :)

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:embarrassed: I should have read your post above with a bit more attention

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Originally Posted by Thorsson

I'm not aware that any flash drive has a write protect, but the password-protected, encrypted files would be hard to infect on a U3 drive.

AVG free version is a pretty good anti-virus. Better than Avast IMO.

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I'm fairly certain that I've read somewhere that Avast actually had a better catch/detect rate than AVG....
Anyway my main computer is using the two side by side (as a special precaution)

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Originally Posted by Agent

Easiest way to do it is a USB-SD card reader and a SD card (which have a switch on for write protect) :)

http://www.ledshoppe.com/Product/com/CA2018.htm
From our friends at the LED shoppe :D

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Good idea as SD card are cheaper.

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Originally Posted by Workaholic

I'm fairly certain that I've read somewhere that Avast actually had a better catch/detect rate than AVG....

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Not in the Computer Shopper tests. Avast did pretty badly.

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Originally Posted by Workaholic

I'm fairly certain that I've read somewhere that Avast actually had a better catch/detect rate than AVG....

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Last month's PC Pro Anti Virus Lab - AVG Free 83%, Avast Home 70%

I was initially installing Avast on PCs I was setting up but it had to be registered after 90 days.

I installed Avast and AVG on an infected PC and found AVG would beat Avast when detecting viruses.

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Originally Posted by Thorsson

Not in the Computer Shopper tests. Avast did pretty badly.

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Spot on ;)

RIGHT

for all you NON-BELIEVERS out there here's a photo of a flash drive WITH a write protect switch
See the little gap/hole just to the middle ish. Left of in use LED, pretty much directly underneath the "ey" letters!

Forgive the wear and tear / colouring (its a very old one I have lying around which is actually dead, only 16MB btw)

http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/4...0080fz8.th.jpg