VirusTotal is a free online service to scan files and URLs for malicious content. It lets you scan one item at a time with a maximum file size limit of 150 MB. Since, it was acquired by Google back in September 2012, if you are not a fan of Google’s data collection practices, you should look for some alternative to VirusTotal.
This article covers 5 free online VirusTotal alternatives to scan files for malware. Each of these scanners has different file size limits ranging from 1 MB to 140 MB. The first three scanners on this list use multiple scan engines to check file thoroughly and one of them can also scan multiple files at once. The remaining two use their own anti-malware tools to scan the file. So, let’s get started and discuss these online scanners one by one in details.
Also read: Identify Objects in Images With the Help of a Bot
5 Free Online VirusTotal Alternatives:
MetaDefender
MetaDefender is a free online virus scanner which can be a potential alternative to VirusTotal. It uses multiple engines to scan the files thoroughly. You can simply add a file up to 140 MB here and scan it with 30 different anti-malware engines. Apart from the file, you can also scan CVE, Hash, and IP address with this service.
In the results, it gives a multiscan score to your file based on the results from all the scan engines. You can view the full report with results from all the engines along with critical detection results if any. If you are aware of a vulnerability in a scan which this service didn’t show, you can report that vulnerability as well. You can also cast a vote for a file by logging in on MetaDefender.
You can try this alternative to Google Image search here.
Jotti
Jotti is another free online file scanner which you can use as an alternative to VirusTotal. Unlike VirusTotal, this service can scan up to 5 files simultaneously with a file limit of 100 MB each. This service uses 20 different malware scanners including Avast, Bitdefender, Trend Micro, Dr. Web, and many more.
In the results, it displays the properties of the files such as size, MD5, SHA1, etc. Below that information, it shows you the results from all available malware scan engines. In the case of multiple files, it shows all this information for each file separately.
Give this Google Image Search alternative a try here.
VirScan
The next free VirusTotal alternative to scan file online is VirScan. It is also a multi-engine scanner with a total of 39 engines including AVG, Avira, Baidu, Bitdefender, Comodo, Kingsoft, K7, Microsoft, Norton, Panda, Trend Micro, and more. This service can only scan one file at a time with a maximum file size limit of 20 MB. In case of a ZIP file, it can only scan a ZIP that has 20 or fewer files in it.
Once the scan is completed, this service gives a safety percentage to your file based on the scan results from the malware scanner engines. It also offers a Habo file analysis report and a Threatbook file behavior analysis report.
Try this free alternative to Google Image Search here.
Kaspersky VirusDesk
Kaspersky offers a free online malware scanner named VirusDesk. This scanner can scan multiple files simultaneously with a 50 MB maximum file size limit. It can also scan web links for hazardous behavior.
The malware engines behind this service are the Kaspersky Lab’s own powerful virus and malware scanners which are also used in other Kaspersky anti-malware tools. In the results, it simply shows you whether the file is safe or not. The interesting feature of this online scanner is the option to “disagree with the scan”. With this option, you can report a file which you think is malicious but come clean in the scan. This feature also useful when software makers if their program is identified as a thread.
Give this free Google Image Search alternative a shot here.
FortiGuard
FortiGuard is another free online file scanner that you can use instead of VirusTotal to scan small files. I said small files because the maximum file size limit of this scanner is only 1 MB. Thus, you can’t scan software here but it’s good for scanning small threads.
To scan a file for malware, you have to pass a reCAPTCHA after loading your file. Once you do that and submit your file this scanner gives the straight. Rather than showing various types of information, it simply tells you whether the file is clean or malicious.
You can try this free Google Image Search alternative here.
Wrap Up:
These are the 5 free VirusTotal alternatives for scanning files for malware online. You can use any of these scanners depending on the file size you have to scan and what information you want.
