Norton Power Eraser
 | It has been suggested that this article be merged into Norton Insight. (Discuss) Proposed since January 2012. |
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| Developer(s) | Symantec Corporation |
|---|---|
| Stable release |
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Norton Power Eraser (NPE) is a small portable executable which uses Norton Insight in-the-cloud application ratings to scan the system. The program matches an application found on the user's computer with a list of trusted and malicious applications. If it's in the list of trusted applications, Power Eraser leaves it on the system. If it is in the list of bad applications, it is marked for deletion. If it is unknown and not in any list, it is reported as suspicious but not marked for removal. Instead, the program recommends a "remote scan", which will upload the file to Symantec's servers to check it with virus definitions.
Effectivness
Power Eraser is very aggressive[1] to unknown threats which are not whitelisted and are instead marked for removal or sent for analysis. The tool also features rootkit scanning, which requires system restart. Threat removal is also performed after restart, on the next boot, to avoid the self-protection of viruses and trojans.
Norton Power Eraser sometimes identifies Photoshop as a threat. However, the only issue the program says is that "there is a problem with the shortcut." Thinking that you are simply fixing a deadlink shortcut, Norton Power Eraser removes the program and saved files. If you discover missing programs after running Norton Power Eraser, you can run Norton Power Eraser [2] to review past repair sessions and undo them.