How to check if a downloaded file is safe

Download Avast here. Helpful 1 Not Helpful 0. Many anti-virus programs offer real-time protection as well as virus scanning. This means that the software will notify you when it detects that you are downloading a virus attached to a file or if a website tries to attack your computer with viruses.

Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0. Submit a Tip All tip submissions are carefully reviewed before being published. Some programs that are designed to check a download for viruses can slow down your computer due to heavy CPU usage. Online virus scanners are a better option when you don't want to install heavy software on your computer system.

Helpful 2 Not Helpful 1. Related wikiHows How to. How to. Co-authors: 8. Updated: November 5, Categories: Maintenance and Repair. Thanks to all authors for creating a page that has been read 55, times. Twitter Reddit Hacker News Facebook.

Share link Tutorial share link. Sign Up. DigitalOcean home. Community Control Panel. Hacktoberfest Contribute to Open Source. By Michael Holley Published on June 7, How File Verification Works File verification, also known as hashing , is the process of checking that a file you have on your machine is identical to the source file.. Performing File Verification on Linux Most Linux distributions have command line tools for each hashing algorithm.

Execute the md5sum command and pass it the path to the file you want to hash: md5sum mini. About the authors. Michael Holley.

Brian Hogan. Still looking for an answer? Ask a question Search for more help. Comments Follow-Up Questions. If you want to scan a. You can spot this by mousing over the link and looking at the address in your browser. Next, head to VirusTotal. This tool has been owned by Google since Click the search button or press Enter to scan the file. VirusTotal will download the file you specified to its servers and scan it with a large number of different antivirus engines.

If other people have recently scanned the file, VirusTotal will show you the recent scan results. This means it should be clean. In fact, not two days after publishing this article, our example file—CCleaner 5. In some cases, the opinion may be near unanimous.

In other cases, only a few antivirus tools may have a problem with the file. This is often a false positive, though in certain circumstances it could be that some antivirus tools have spotted new malware before others. You can scroll down to see which antivirus tools had a problem with the file, view more details about the file, and see community comments about whether the URL is safe or not. In some cases, for example, it may just be flagged for including bundled crapware, which is easily bypassable.

To make this process easier, the VirusTotal project offers browser extensions. Download the appropriate extension and you can right-click a link and select the VirusTotal option to quickly scan it and see the results.

If VirusTotal is unanimous that a file is dangerous, you should stay away. If the results are mixed, you should be careful, but you may want to examine the more detailed antivirus results to see why they say the file is dangerous. Browse All iPhone Articles Browse All Mac Articles Do I need one? Even loading a website sometimes can expose your computer to malicious code. This is called a drive-by attack, as it happens without you doing anything and simply loading the website.

That said, there are ways to block the virus at its primary stage. There are certain precautions you can take to insure against malware and reasonably ensure that the file you are downloading is safe. At the end of the day, it all comes down to your usage, browsing and download habits. There are certain, shall we say, best practices before clicking on download links.

Listed below are the precautions and preventive measures you should take before clicking the download button. Assess your downloads: Always be aware of what you download on your PC and where you download it from. Also, if your download source has a forum or user comments section, it is never a bad idea to scan that and read what others are saying. Check the source: Always download your programs from a trusted source.

If you are downloading an addon from Mozilla or an installer from Microsoft, it is logical that it will not likely be a virus. But if you are nabbing pirated content from shady sources, or a plugin from a random site, then be doubly careful.

Use your judgement: A very important consideration before initiating a download. Look at the size of a file. If it is too small or large for what it is, it may well be junk. Be extra wary of executable files, not just the ones with the. EXE extensions but also. SCR, and so on. Downloading and running these without proper scanning can potentially open up a can of worms on your computer.

Look for a signature: Popular software is usually signed off with a license. Windows usually throws up a security warning when you try to run downloaded programs from the web, particularly ones that it considers a threat to your computer security or privacy. Be alert of attachments: Email and forum attachments, both, can be a source of headache.

If you get files sent this way, only download and open content from people and places you trust. Scan before and after: Although scanning is no absolute guarantee, and antivirus programs are not perfect and may not detect new malware, it still is necessary for when you are downloading things from strangers and sources that you are not sure of.

Use an online solution to scan before you download, or put your trusty old installed program to use when you have downloaded your file. Long story short, you are the best defense against malicious files.

There is no substitute for basic online security practices.