Who else and who less, surely at some point you have seen how your computer has been infected by some type of virus or malware. Although the normal thing is that everyone has a security tool installed on their computer, the truth is that in a pinch we can always use some free online antivirus that we can find on the Internet. Next, we are going to show some of the best free online antivirus that we can use for free to try to detect and eliminate viruses on your computer or mobile device.
When it comes to free online antivirus, it is important to know that they are not designed to replace antivirus programs, since online tools do not offer real-time protection. In addition, it is necessary to differentiate between online tools that perform a complete analysis of the system to detect and eliminate infected files and those that are more focused on analyzing files individually. Of course, we must bear in mind that despite being online solutions, in some of them we will have to download an executable to be able to scan our computer for viruses.
Another alternative is the antivirus for USB or portable , which are those that we can carry on any pendrive and that do not require installation.
Advantages and disadvantages of online antivirus
An online antivirus is an online program or application that we can run directly from our browser to scan our computer or certain files to detect any virus or threat. This means that they offer certain advantages over traditional antivirus:
- Constant update : the versions available through its official website will always be the latest versions offered by its developer.
- Availability : Regardless of the computer we are using, we can have access to any of them since they do not require installations. It is enough to go to the website of the antivirus in question to carry out any analysis, all we need is a web browser.
- Several results : Many of the online antivirus carry out analyzes with different security tools. This makes the result very reliable, since we can check what each antivirus says about the file analysis.
- Free : we can find a lot of free antivirus online, like the ones we show below.
But not all that glitters is gold and the use of this type of tool also has certain drawbacks :
- Less effective : They are not as complete as the antivirus that are installed on the computer.
- No permanent protection : They do not offer permanent protection. They allow an analysis or protection to be carried out, but this ends when we close the browser.
- They only serve to scan : They scan our computer or certain files in search of viruses but they do not usually protect sensitive areas of the system, nor do they have advanced functions for email control, etc.
Best free online antivirus
Google Chrome Antivirus
Although surely many users already know it, others still may not know that Google’s browser has its own integrated antivirus. To use it, we only have to write in the Chrome address bar, Chrome: // settings / cleanup and press Enter. Next, we will be shown a page where all we have to do is click on the Search button and the process will start automatically.
Metadefender
MetaDefender is a free online antivirus to analyze a file in search of viruses or malware but something more complete, since in this case, it also offers us the possibility of scanning a file, an IP address, a domain, a URL or a CVE. It has an intuitive interface where we will easily find each and every one of the analysis options it offers.
VirusTotal
Another free online antivirus that allows you to scan a specific file. In this way, we can know in advance if the file that we have downloaded or that we want to download is trustworthy or not. VirusTotal is one of the most popular online antivirus and has a huge database in which it checks each file to detect if we are dealing with a malicious file or not.
VirusTotal allows us to analyze a file of up to 256MB and we can instruct you to send us the report of the result by email.
Panda Cloud Cleaner
Panda Security is one of the benchmarks when it comes to antivirus, and in addition to its different security products, it also has a free online antivirus, Panda Cloud Cleaner. A tool that is online that allows us to eliminate all unnecessary processes before starting the analysis to try to identify any malicious file that may be camouflaged behind other processes.
Panda Cloud Cleaner is very easy to use, since once the analysis is complete, all we have to do is select the malicious files and click on delete.
ESET Online Scannner
ESET Online Scanner is perhaps one of the most complete free online antivirus that we can find. In addition, it has a fairly intuitive and easy to use interface. From this online tool it is possible to indicate if we want to perform a complete, fast or personalized scan or analysis of our PC.
In addition, it also offers the possibility of indicating if we want to quarantine or delete the suspicious files that it has detected. Something quite useful blinked in the case of false positives.
F-Secure Online Scanner
Another interesting free online antivirus is F-Secure Online Scanner. It is perhaps one of the fastest online antivirus that we can find, although it is also one of the most basic. It does not offer the possibility of choosing if we want to make a complete, simple or personalized scan, but it will always do it completely.
However, its speed is the strong point of F-Secure Online Scanner, so we will not have to wait so long for the full scan to be carried out every time we use this free online antivirus. The lack of options makes it a really easy tool to use.
VirScan
VirScan is one of the free online antivirus that, unlike the previous ones, allows us to scan a specific file. The file limit is 20MB per file. If we want to scan several files at the same time, the only thing we can do is compress them all into a ZIP or RAR file and scan that file, of course, the limit of files that the ZIP or RAR can contain is 20.
Jotti
Jotti is a free service that allows you to scan suspicious files with various antivirus programs. We can upload up to 5 files at the same time with a limit of 250MB per file. It is a good alternative to VirusTotal by using many of the best antivirus for Windows 10.
Kaspersky VirusDesk
We continue the review with Kaspersky VirusDesk, the online solution of one of the best antivirus of the moment. Simply drag a file into the search box or enter a URL to scan. In a few seconds we will have the result.
Trend Micro HouseCall
Another famous solution comes to us with Trend Micro HouseCall, a free online virus detection scan. It is used to find and remove viruses, worms, spyware and other malicious threats for free.
Norton Security Scan
Norton Security Scan is the tool to determine if the system is infected with viruses, malware, spyware or other threats. In addition, they now have a cookie manager that we can use to detect suspicious or dangerous cookies and eliminate those that are cause for concern.
Safety Detective – Known Vulnerability Scanner
The review takes us to Safety Detective’s known vulnerability scanner solution. It scans the system for viruses and malware in general, returning the result to us in a few seconds.
These online antivirus solutions can get us out of a bind by scanning the system or a specific file, but it will always be better to have a complete security solution installed. In the case of Windows 10, the protection of its integrated free antivirus is more than enough, although we can always choose to entrust the security of the system to other advanced solutions offered by the market.
AntiScan.me
AntiScan.me is another online service for scanning files for antivirus. Therefore, the only thing that we will have to do to know if a file is infected or not is to visit the site and upload the file to be analyzed. AntiScan uses up to 26 different antivirus services to check our file and once analyzed, it offers the result that each one of them has given.
Avira antivirus
Avira is one of the most popular antivirus and considered one of the tools to take into account when we want to protect our PC. Some of the main features are that it has a clean and easy-to-use interface, it has a free VPN (up to 500 Mb per month). In addition, it has a premium paid version that has unlimited VPN, more than 30 optimization tools, automatic updates of your applications and drivers, mobile applications and VIP customer service.
Windows Defender
Windows Defender is the antivirus integrated into Windows 10 and therein lies one of its greatest virtues, that it is not necessary to install anything and that our computer will be protected from the moment we turn it on for the first time.
Other features are that the antivirus defense is always activated without additional costs, the files are protected and you can access them from any of your devices. You can configure your options for location, camera, etc. To manage your privacy. You also have the ability to limit access to adult content, restrict online purchases.
