Avira has announced the availability of the Avira PC Cleaner, a simple stand-alone antivirus scanner.

The program is a mere 2.17MB download and doesn’t require any installation, reducing the chance of any conflicts with existing security tools. It scanned our test system quickly, detecting and removing a malware sample.

One potential problem is that the Cleaner needs to download up to 100MB of updates the first time it runs, so can’t easily be used offline.

The other complication will be visible just as soon as the program launches: the interface is currently only available in German. This isn’t necessarily a fatal issue, as the Cleaner is simple and you’ll probably have to click no more than four buttons (Avira’s blog spells most of this out). But agreeing to a program licence which you can’t read always makes us a little queasy, even for a trusted company like Avira.

If you’re an Avira fan, then (or you can read German), Avira PC Cleaner does give you a useful way to scan other systems for malware. Otherwise, just a wait a while; an English language version is apparently due soon.