If you’re a Geek, then I’ll wager that you’ve got at least one of NirSoft’s incredibly useful small utilities on your Hard Drive – or, on a Flash Drive. If you’re not yet familiar with NirSoft’s collection of free tools, then you’re in for a treat.
NirSoft offers over 100 freeware utilities ranging from Password Tools, Network Monitoring Tools, to System Tools and more. All are available as individual downloads, or you can download all 100+ applications in one neat package – NirLauncher
In order to start using NirLauncher, extract the files in the package to your Flash Drive, or your Hard Drive. After you have extracted the package, simply run the executable file – NirLauncher.exe
Once you’ve launched NirLauncher, you can then launch any utility you choose from the GUI. You’ll notice, in the following graphic, that the tools are grouped by function.
Clicking any graphic on this page will expand it to its original size.
A total of 106 Utilities.
Password recovery utilities illustrated.
Fast facts:
NirLauncher can be used from USB flash drive without the need to install.
NirLauncher package includes a variety of tools, including utilities to recover lost passwords, to monitor your network, to view and extract cookies, cache, and other information stored by your Web browser, to search files in your system, and more…
For every utility in the package, you can easily run it, view the help file, or jump to the Web page of the utility.
When installed on a USB flash drive, the configuration of every utility is saved into a .cfg file on the flash drive.
On x64 systems, NirLauncher automatically runs the x64 version of the utility, when there is a specific x64 version.
NirLauncher allows you to add additional software packages – including SysInternals Suite. Please see the download page for additional information.
System requirements: Windows 2000 up to Windows 7. NirLauncher also works on x64 systems.
Download at: Nirsoft – scroll down to the bottom of the page.
Available languages: Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Traditional Chinese.
The false positive issue:
I recently came across a forum comment (on another site), made by a regular reader, who made the comment that he occasionally gets a malware warning on applications I recommend.
He’s right, and here’s why.
Many of the applications I test and recommend, are designed to be used by sophisticated users and often, these applications dig deep into the operating system replicating the behavior of hacking tools on the one hand – and malware on the other hand.
Some of the applications in NirLauncher are a perfect example of this. A number of the recovery utilities are in fact, hacking tools. Any application which can recover a hidden password is, by its very nature, a hacking tool.
You can see from the following graphic, that on installing NirLauncher my primary AV, Microsoft Security Essentials, went into overdrive to warn me of 5 potential threats contained in the NirLauncher package. This is exactly what Microsoft Security Essentials is designed to do.
Here’s what I said in a previous article dealing with false positives:
Antimalware applications are not immune from false positives. In fact, false positives are more common than many users realize. Just one example – some AVs are notorious for seeing extractor files in application setup files as a Trojan.
Since I was well aware that the warnings were false positives – all items were allowed.
Here’s what NirSoft has to say on the false positive issue – Antivirus companies cause a big headache to small developers.
TechInnovatives 