Web Talk

VirusTotal is a nice website which lets you scan your files to look for virus, spyware, worm, trojan and other malware. Well, written like this it looks like this website is nothing new at all, but VirusTotal is not what it looks like. As a matter of fact VirusTotal scans your files by using 32 virus scanners such as: Alwil, Avira, ClamAV, AVG Technologies, Kaspersky Lab, McAfee, Panda e Symantec and other ones. There are three ways to scan a file (whose size has to be 10 Mb at most):

• Upload a file in the homepage
• Send your file via email (scan@virustotal.com)
• Download and open a little file in your computer. This little program lets you upload a file to scan in two easy steps.

On the homepage (available in 20 languages) there is an indicator showing the current service load level. The higher the load the longer you will have to wait for your result. I like VirusTotal a lot because, since I am rather paranoid when it comes to opening unknown files on my PC, it lets me use a lot of scanners (most of them are quite famous and reliable) with a few steps. I also like it because the website itself is rather simple and require no knowledge to use it. Try it yourself and discover how easy is to spot a virus!

If you want to know more about online scanners read this article. If you want to know more how to protect your computer from viruses read this guide.