8 Free Online Virus and Spyware Scanners – Scan Your PC Right Now for Free
By Jeremy on Feb 16, 2009 with Comments 16
A List of Free Online Antivirus Software
Keeping your computer safe and secure these days can be quite a task. It seems that everywhere you look, people are trying to steal your personal data, infect your computer with a nasty virus, or trick you into clicking links that aren’t legitimate. As you are probably using your computer to tackle a number of increasingly personal tasks, it’s more important than ever to make sure you’re protected. If you’ve ever been a victim of a devastating virus that wiped out your hard drive or received a strange email that secretly emailed all of your contacts, you know the importance of keeping your PC safe.
While there’s no substitute for an updated real-time virus scanner installed on your computer, there are times when you may not have antivirus software installed, or it may be costly to purchase an additional license for a computer that isn’t often used. So, luckily there are many free online scan utilities out there available to you. In addition to being completely free and easy to use, you’ll also get a feel for how many of the different types of programs work. If you’re thinking about purchasing antivirus software for your computer, you can get a better idea of which one might be best for you after trying the online versions.
Trend Micro HouseCall
Trend Micro HouseCall is an online application for checking whether your computer has been infected by viruses, spyware, or other malware. HouseCall performs additional security checks to identify and fix vulnerabilities to prevent reinfection. HouseCall works with most versions of Windows, and Mac OS 10.4 or higher and can be used with IE 6+ and Firefox. Scan your computer with HouseCall now.
BitDefender
BitDefender Online Scanner is an on-demand virus scanner which incorporates the award-winning BitDefender scanning engines. You can use it to scan your system’s memory, all files and drives’ boot sectors, and to automatically clean infected files. You will need Internet Explorer to run this scan. Use BitDefender today.
Symantec Norton Security Scan
Symantec offers two different scanning options. You can scan for security problems or just do a virus scan. In addition, you can also opt to download a free version of the basic software to your computer so it runs automatically without requiring you to go online and manually run the scan. You will need IE 5+ with ActiveX in order to run the online version. Try Symantec now.
F-Secure Online Scanner
F-Secure Online Virus Scanner is a free service. Use it to find out if your computer is infected, and disinfect your computer if needed. To use this scan, you will need to be running Windows and use Internet Explorer with javascript and ActiveX installed. In addition to the online virus scan, you may find the F-Secure Health Check useful as well. The health check will scan your computer and applications to determine if there are any outdated software or other vulnerabilities detected. Use the F-Secure online virus scanner.
McAfee Free Scan
McAfee FreeScan helps you detect thousands of viruses on your computer. Based on the award-winning McAfee VirusScan engine, FreeScan searches for viruses, including the latest known “in the wild” viruses, and displays a detailed list of any infected files. Should viruses be found, FreeScan even provides links to more information about the viruses and what you can do to clean your system. Try McAfee Free Scan now.
CA Online Virus Scan
Similar to the other scanners, this is a quick online tool that can scan your files for harmful files. The tool allows you to select specific drives or files if you don’t want to scan your entire computer, which is great if you just need to run a quick scan on something in particular. This tool also requires IE with ActiveX installed. Try the CA virus scanner today.
ESET Nod32 Antivirus
The ESET Online Scanner claims to be the best free virus scan. “A user-friendly, powerful tool, our online antivirus utility can remove malware—viruses, spyware, adware, worms, trojans, and more—from any PC utilizing only a web browser. No installation required. The scanner uses the same ThreatSense® technology and signatures as ESET NOD32 Antivirus, which means it is always up-to-date.” I personally use NOD32 as my personal scanner and have purchased their scanning software. The online version does require IE with ActiveX. Try the free online scan now.
Panda ActiveScan
Panda’s ActiveScan is a robust online virus and malware scanner that goes beyond most conventional scanners. Collective Intelligence (scanning in-the-cloud) that detects malware that traditional security solutions cannot detect. If you create a free user account, you can also create custom scans and access your scan history. And even better, this is one of the few online scanners that will work with Firefox. Try Panda’s ActiveScan today.
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Great list of resources.
Taking care of your computer is a lot like taking care of your car. I hate getting oil changes and I hate paying for security software or backing up my computer. But if I don’t do these things for my car or my computer, it is going to cost me a lot more in the long run.
This is a good list but instead of using a scanning tool, why not install one of the excellent free anti-virus programs that can both scan for and remove infections? AVG anti-virus is the one that I use.
I’ve been using AVG’s free personal edition for a year now, and have not had any problems. Highly recommended.
What about moonsecure? http://www.moonsecure.com/ free as in beer and speech, it uses the ClamAV database so updates itself quite nicely.
You should also consider avast! virus protection. It’s free (for personal use), simple to use, and updates all the time. I have not had any problems with any of my computers once I started using avast!
I would also suggest spybot – it goes around and routes out all the spyware on your computer. It’s also free and relatively easy to use. You must manually update it each time before you use it to make sure it’s the latest version.
I agree with Mr. GoTo, AVG is a good solid antivirus, although you can also find Windows compatible CLAMAV programs which also do the job.
i also used AVG antivirus.
Actually, for me the function of antivirus is for our computer safety from virus that get in into the computer so we can remove or delete the virus.
BUT we need spyware to protect our computer from get the virus via online “it’s mean when we connect to the internet” so we can stop the virus get into our computer.
that why i used both antivirus and spyware to protect my computer it’s very important.
is that right what i am doing? =)
This will definitely help me out. I’ve actually been looking for a good software to use. Thanks a lot!
I third or fourth the AVG Anti-virus recommendation.
Computer security also dictates that people need to do their automatic updates! I can’t say how many times I have cleaned a computer recently and found the person still doesn’t have SP1 or SP2 for XP. People, we are already at SP3! The service packs do fix security holes
Also, I have found that Windows Defender works quite nicely if you have a Windows computer. One of the few solutions they own that works very well in my opinion (prob since they bought it from Giant
)
I personally don’t even use any anti-virus software, but do occasionally run spyware software Spybot Search and Destroy as Keira suggested http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html. It is really great and also comes with a registry monitor.
Free is gooooood, and this is a good list of free anti virus offerings, but AVG, which is the one I use ain’t here! Paid for offerings like Kaspersky shade the free AVG, but not by much though. I’ve had years of excellent service from them after my bundled Norton expired.
I have had good luck with Spybot and Ad-Aware for cleaning up spyware. The Yahoo anti-spy is ok too – the nice thing is that it is fast. I find you need to use several packages to make sure you get all the stuff off your PC.
I remember when F-Secure was known as F-Prot… that’s old school. I’ve been using AVG lately and haven’t had a problem yet!
None of these find ALL the problems, so running one after the other makes the most sense to me. But which ones in which order is the 64K question…. any suggestions?