The idea is to alarm and panic you into buying the software without taking time to think. They scare the heck out you with jittering popup windows, with warnings screaming in blinking red and yellow letters, 'ALERT! WARNING! DANGER! YOUR COMPUTER IS INFECTED WITH MALWARE!' or 'YOU NEED TO BUY OUR VIRUS REMOVAL PROGRAM RIGHT NOW! CLICK HERE BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!' So-called 'rogue online virus scanners' always find lots of malware on any computer they scan. Now it should be obvious why there are so many free online virus scanners out there! But many of them are wolves in sheep's clothing. To fix any problems reported by the free online virus scanner, you often must pay for a full-blown antivirus program. These are features found in desktop antivirus packages. It may not be able to quarantine any viruses or spyware, or disinfect your computer.Īlso, a free online virus scanner does not continually monitor incoming and outgoing Internet traffic for threats and block attempts to install unknown software. But an online virus scanner typically only reports what it finds. It can examine your computer for viruses and other malware through your web browser, just as a desktop antivirus program's scan would do.

What are free online virus scanners, are they safe, and should you be using one? An online virus scanner is a program that runs on a remote server.

Free online virus scan website