Fake Antivirus Remover

Developed by Trend Micro, Fake Antivirus Remover is a tiny and portable software application designed to help you find and remove FakeAV threats from the computer. It features multiple scan modes, a quarantine manager, and logs.

Portability advantages

You can drop the program files in any part of the hard disk and simply click the executable to launch the app. Otherwise, you can keep it stored on a removable storage unit to directly run it on any PC effortlessly. Unlike most installers, it doesn't modify Windows registry settings.

Straightforward interface and options

Fake Antivirus Remover is wrapped in a user-friendly interface, based on a single window split into four pane, where you can perform scans, manage the quarantine, view logs, and configure settings, respectively. These are neatly organized and can be figured out even by users with little experience in antivirus utilities.

Different scan modes and quarantine manager

The tool can be asked to verify all active processes for possible FakeAV threats, only the ones you select after examining their names, IDs, publishers, titles and locations, or to scan the window of a currently running program by simply dragging an over it.
During the scan job you can check out a progress bar, current and total number of scanned processes, number of suspicious processes, elapsed time, and the full path of the currently scanned item. The task may be canceled if you change your mind. Scan results show the potential threats found along with their response.

Manage the quarantine, view logs, and configure settings

Any suspicious items can be sent to the quarantine to isolate them from the rest of the computer. From this area you can later decide whether you want to permanently remove the files from the computer, or restore them to their original locations if the alarm turned out to be a false positive.
Fake Antivirus Remover records program activity to a log window that you can examine anytime, as well as delete the log. As far as preferences are concerned, you can report feedback and issues to Trend Micro, disable the automatic download of new updates, or update the application on the spot with one click.

Evaluation and conclusion

The utility worked smoothly in our tests, without triggering the operating system to hang, crash or prompt error messages. Unsurprisingly, it had minimal impact on computer performance, using low CPU and memory.
On the other hand, Fake Antivirus Remover hasn't been updated for a very long time, and it remained in beta development stage.