Thursday, December 5, 2013

Virus Check BEFORE Download


I assume that you know about Virustotal (VT). If you still don't now than I am at a loss of words- which rarely if ever happens to me. But enough of my puny attempts on being funny.

With VT you can check any reasonably sized file (up to 64MB) that already is stored on your computer for viruses. What if you want to check a file for viruses before you actually download it?

If you use a web browser other than Internet Explorer you could install an extension.
  • In Mozilla Firefox you can install the VTzilla extension.
  • In Google Chrome  you can install the VTchromizer extension.
  • In Opera you can install the VTopera extension. 
Thesae extensions make it possible to right click on a download link before you start the download. In the context meny that opens you will see an entry like shown here; the example was taken from VTzilla in Firefox:
VT will upload and test the file in it's usual manner and presto you have a good idea whether the file in question is "clean".

If you feel challenged by the idea to install an extension in Firefox don't despair, I can do that remotely. 

As usual I welcome suggestions and comments right here in the blog.

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I've never tried VTzilla, but I'm a VirusTotal fan. I really love that their site allows searching by checksum.