16 Free Online Antivirus: To Scan for Threats Without Downloading Anything

We bring you a list of 16 free online antivirus and other tools to scan for threats and malware. In the concept of online antivirus many times, you will find downloadable applications, but we are going to focus on web pages where you will not need to install anything on your computer. This way, you will be able to check individual files that you have downloaded or are on a website.

We are going to try to keep the list quite varied because there are not many reliable tools of this kind, but at least you have quite a few types at your disposal. Most of them will be just that, online scanners to upload files for analysis, but you will also find other types of tools that are somewhat different but equally useful.

We have tried to give you a clean list of services we have tested. However, as we always say in Techidence, we invite you to share your suggestions in the comments section with other users, because perhaps you may know of another service that we have overlooked and may be useful to users.

VirusTotal

VirusTotal

Let’s start by skipping the alphabetical order, as VirusTotal deserves to be at the top of any list. This is an online portal created in Malaga in 2004 and bought by Google in 2012. In the search engine giant, it belongs to the Chronicle subdivision of Alphabet. It is a web as complete as fast and useful since you can manually upload your file or put the URL to analyze it.

This page stands out above all for its great speed when analyzing files, partly because it provides the results of about 70 antivirus, as well as due to its popularity you can end up uploading files that have already been analyzed by someone else before, which also speeds everything up. Come on, it’s not an antivirus per se, but an intermediary between you and dozens of them.

AntiScan

AntiScan

We continue now with the alphabetical order, and we do it with the AntiScan service. This one only just makes the list, as the free trials it offers are limited. You can run three free scans, and after that, you will have to pay $0.1 for each additional scan.

It only allows you to scan files that have executable formats, such as Exe, Msi, or Js, but also documents such as Doc, Docx, Xls, or Pdf among others. It does not allow you to scan images. The files you upload will be scanned by 26 antivirus engines, including Avast, AVG, BitDefender, NOD32, Kaspersky, and McAfee. From the result, you will be able to create an image that you can share later.

Avira

Avira

In addition to websites that send your files to search engines, you also have the alternative of using the web alternatives of the antivirus companies themselves, such as Avira. On this website, you send them the file and you can quickly find out if there is any malware. However, with a limit of 50 MB per file.

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You can send them the file by uploading it from your computer or pointing to a URL address. One of the peculiarities of this site is that you will be asked for contact details by email, in case they have to make any important communication, and you will be helping to update the database of one of the most important antivirus.

Avira by e-mail

There are some oddities in the world of online analysis, and that is that some security companies also allow you to send the files to be analyzed by mail. Avira, which we talked about above, also has one of these services.

In this case, what you have to do is send them an email to the address virus@avira.com, and the file to be analyzed must be compressed so that the company’s security methods do not delete it and prevent attacks.

Dr.Web

Dr.Web

We continue with another page that belongs to a specific security and antivirus company, the Dr.Web online analysis website. It is possibly the simplest and most straightforward site on this list, although if you are looking to keep things simple, it may be useful for you.

The web page is a single page with nothing more than the form to choose the file, which has to be hosted on your device. The maximum file size to upload is only 10 MB, which in many cases can be too small, although that makes it parse somewhat faster.

FortiGuard

FortiGuard

This is another fairly simple website where you submit a file, and the site takes care of analyzing it and telling you the result. It also gives you the possibility to put your email address in case they have to write to you to tell you something important about the file. The bad news is that although it has a powerful engine, these files can only weigh a maximum of 1 MB.

Hybrid Analysis

Hybrid Analysis

Most of the pages in this list are services that scan your files in third-party antivirus. The hybrid goes one step further, as it is a service that scans your files on other services that scan them on third-party antivirus. In other words, it does not take them to search engines in general, but to pages such as VirusTotal, CrowdStrike Falcon, or MetaDefender.

The site has a 100 MB file limit, which means you can’t upload any files larger than that. But its big advantage is that it offers a lot of methods for linking files, from uploading them from your device or adding their URL to searching for matching strings and byte-level hexadecimal patterns.

Jotti

Jotti

Compared to the service we started the list with, Jotti is a bit outdated in terms of design and analysis power, but it is still a good option when it comes to analyzing your files. It has a somewhat outdated design, and the files you upload are filtered by 15 different antivirus engines.

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The files you upload must have a maximum weight of 250 MB, and although its number of search engines may seem limited, it has names of the level of Avast, BitDefender, or ESET. It doesn’t show too much additional information in the results, and although it doesn’t let you search from URL addresses, at least it does let you search for results by Hash.

Kaspersky VirusDesk

Kaspersky VirusDesk

We continue with another solution created by a company specialized in antivirus, such as Kaspersky VirusDesk. It is a simpler service that searches on Kaspersky’s engine and has been fed by samples and scans from antivirus users.

This service allows you to upload files up to 256 MB from your device, and also target files via IPs, Hash, or URLs. It’s a simple service, but one that may interest you if you especially trust Kaspersky antivirus and want to use it to scan point files for free and without having to install anything.

MetaDefender Cloud

MetaDefender Cloud

This is a somewhat unknown page, but it stands out especially for the many possibilities it gives you when importing the file you want to analyze. You can do it from a URL, from your computer’s file explorer, as well as from other addresses such as IP, domain, and HASH.

The service belongs to OPSWAT, a cybersecurity company founded in 2002. The file you provide, the site will scan it with more than 20 different antivirus engines looking for any danger, including such powerful names as Avira, McAfee, or BitDefender. In its final report, it includes both known security issues and user reports.

NoDistribute

NoDistribute

This is an online file scanning portal for malware that uses 35 antivirus engines to filter the files you send them and look for any danger in them. You can send files by uploading them from your device, and they can be practically any type of file, including compressed files.

The only thing you should know is that it has a limit of three free scans, so it is a very useful and fast tool for specific uses, but you may prefer another in case you want to analyze several files continuously.

Shields Up Port Scanner

This is a rather old tool with an interface that may be outdated, but it serves a very different and particular purpose and is very efficient. What it does is scan the first 1056 TCP ports on your computer to see if they might be open because of some kind of malware on your computer.

Here, the results it gives you are also quite particular. If the ports are open it is bad, and the more the worse, and if they are closed it is a good thing. Generally, if you’re not using a port your computer should have them closed by default, so finding them open can be a bad sign.

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URLVoid

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<h2><strong>URLVoid</strong></h2>
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This is a different online tool from the rest of the ones you are going to find in the list, as it analyzes web pages instead of files. So, what you will have is an online reputation analysis based on the issues or malware that may have been found in a URL.

You will only have to type the address of the page in general, and you will be shown a summary with its data and the date of the last analysis performed. Then the web will be filtered with 35 antivirus engines, including heavyweights such as Avira, DrWeb, or BitDefender among others.

VirSCAN.org

VirSCAN.org

This is a fairly simple but effective page, one that only allows you to add files from your computer. These have to be less than 20 MB in size, and you will not be able to use URL links or other methods to point to files, they have to be the ones you have on your device.

Once you upload the files, they are filtered by 49 different antivirus search engines. This process can take a while, but it’s still a pretty effective website for scanning your files.

VirusTotal by e-mail

Near the beginning of the article, we mentioned that some companies also offer a free service where you can send them suspicious files by mail to be scanned for you. You want to remove your doubts about a possible threat, and they have the possibility of finding new threats for the rest of their customers with this method.

VirusTotal is another of the companies that offer this service, which is several, but this is one of the most outstanding. What you have to do is to send them a file of up to 32 MB to scan@virustotal.com with the subject SCAN or SCAN+XML. With the first subject, the answer will arrive at you in plain text, and with the second one, they will send it to you in XML format.

Chrome Antivirus

Chrome Antivirus

And let’s end this article with a different option. This is an online antivirus that you do not have to install, but that comes directly integrated into Google Chrome itself. Therefore, if you use the antivirus you will not need other websites. True, this system may not rival some of the suggestions on the list, but for simple analysis of the entire computer may be sufficient.

This integrated antivirus scans the files on your computer as a whole, and you cannot provide it with URLs to look at files hosted online. However, as a basic tool for Chrome users, it is a good alternative. To access it you will have to type Chrome://settings/cleanup in the search bar.

This post may contain affiliate links, which means that I may receive a commission if you make a purchase using these links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

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