The Inspirations » online virus detector

Scan URL for Virus & Scan File Before Download

Ivan — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 12:35:50 +0000

How often do you find links that are sent to your email or shared within a forum and you’re tempted to click it but worried about the credibility of the site? How many times you download a file only to find that it contains harmful stuff like virus, trojan, worm and the likes? Sure you already install a firewall and a top antivirus software, but adding one more protection to your line of defense to protect the life of your computer system, and especially your data, is definitely a good idea to consider about.

Dr.Web LinkChecker is a free browser add-on that works for Opera, Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer. A small utility that allows you to scan URL or to scan a file before you even download it. Since this link checker integrates with browser’s right-click menu, you can scan URL before you visit it or scan URL before you download a file just by right-clicking the URL and select Scan with Dr.Web.

Infected URL report

Read also: scan files online and scan file online

Dr.Web LinkChecker is a free solution that offers an alternative way to fight malicious files. However, before you scan url that contains downloadable files, keep in mind that the maximum size allowed is 12MB.

Download Dr.Web LinkChecker to scan URL from here

Scan Files Online Free with 37 Antivirus Engines

Ivan — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 08:01:04 +0000

I have posted here several days ago two free online virus scanners, each of which is armed with numerous antivirus engines, which you can read here: scan files online. VirSCAN is another similar service that offers around 37 popular antivirus engines.

VirSCAN features include:

Scan file up to 20MB for each uploaded file.
Scan files from your computer. If you want to perform an URL scanning, take a look at the features of NoVirusThanks called Scan Web Address.
Support RAR/Zip archive file, but should contain less than 20 files.
The antivirus engines used include Kaspersky, Antivir, BitDefender, McAfee, and a lot more. You can see the list on the front page.
Free.
In addition to viruses, the engines used can detect other kind of malwares such as worms, trojans, spyware, adware, dailers, Jokers, keyloggers, etc.

During the scanning, you can view the result of each of the antivirus software instantly. Or, you can just leave the process until it is finished and check the final report that reveals all the scanning results.

Scan files online with VirSCAN:

Visit VirSCAN to scan files online for free

Scan Files Online for Virus with More Than 24 Antivirus Software

Ivan — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 18:58:19 +0000

Scan files online for virus is an alternative for those who needs to be very sure about the safety of the files downloaded from the internet. Most of the online virus scanning providers offer their services for free, so you can scan a file either from your computer or from an URL even before you download it with as many antiviruses as you like without spending money to buy them. However, the more online virus scanners you choose, the more time it takes to visit them one by one.

In this case, if you’d like an efficient way where you can scan files with many antivirus engines at once, there are two websites you can go. Just like most of the other online antivirus providers, they also provide their virus scanning services for free.

Scan Files Online with NoVirusThanks

NoVirusThanks is a free online virus scanner that currently offers 24 antivirus engines to scan any file. Its “Local Virus Scanning” feature lets you scan a file from your computer, and “Scan Web Address” allows you to scan an URL or a downloadable file from an URL.

“Local Virus Scanning” is useful to double-check files that you already have in your computer but marked as being suspicious by your currently-installed antivirus software. “Scan Web Address”, on the other hand, is useful to ensure that an URL contains no virus and the likes before you visit it and useful to check if a downloadable file contains viruses or not before you download it.

I’m sure most of you know well already about how to use both of these features, but there are some people out there that ask how to use an online virus scanner to scan downloadable files. So, here you are how to do it.

How to scan downloadable files online with NoVirusThanks:

Before you visit NoVirusThanks, visit the URL of the downloadable file and find the direct download link. For example, let’s pretend that we will download Veoh Video Downloader that I have posted here earlier. Visit the download page and copy the direct download link, that is http://www.downloadtoolz.com/files/veoh_d_setup.exe.
Now visit NoVirusThanks website and click on the “Scan Web Address” tab. Paste the copied URL into the “Web Address to Scan” box and click “Submit Address”.

Wait until the scanning process is completed.

A detailed report will be provided once the scanning is finished. You can check it to see if the file that you’re going to download is free from viruses. Note that you cannot upload a file with size more than 20 MB.

Scan Files Online with VirusTotal

VirusTotal is also a free online virus checker, but it offers more antivirus engines than NoVirusThanks. Currently there are around 40 antivirus engines being used to detect any virus, worm, trojan and other kind of malwares online. However, VirusTotal doesn’t have an option to scan URL. It only lets you scan files from your computer.

You can scan your files with VirusTotal in 3 different ways:

Visit the website and upload the file using the online uploader.

Send file via email as an attachment to scan@virustotal.com with SCAN as the title of the subject. The allowed maximum size is 20 MB.
Use the desktop application, VirusTotal Uploader. A perfect choice if you want to instantly send files from Windows explorer for an online scan.

VirusTotal also allows you to send files over SSL for a computer that runs behind a proxy with antivirus support. Additionally, there are small icons used as an indicator of how high the current service load level is. Once you visit the website, check the icons first to see if it is the right time for you to scan file online using the service.

Once again, both of the online virus detectors are free services. Even though they offer such a big number of antivirus engines to scan your file, they’re not meant to be a replacement for any desktop antivirus application. You shouldn’t leave your computer without any real-time antivirus protection.

In addition, if any of the online virus engines provided by either of the two providers mark a file of yours as a suspicious file, then you should take a look carefully at the report before you decide that the file will harm your system. If only one or two antivirus engines that alert you, I think it is only a false alert and should be ignored. It’s just my opinion, anyway. If the marked files are not that important, perhaps it is better to just leave or remove them if you’re really worried about the safety of your system and your other data.

If you’re looking for a desktop antivirus application, you might be interested in the official offer from Norton that provides Norton Internet Security 2009 free for 90 days. But you should hurry up as this promotion can end anytime.