Should I use:

if ($remove eq ~ m/^.*\b($remove)\b.*$) {
 # do stuff here
}
[download]

It doesn't compile, so I wouldn't use it:-)

Perhaps you meant something like:

if ( m/\b$remove\b/ ) {
 # do stuff here
}
[download]

how would I go about generating a random filename?

See File::Temp