What would you consider safer? Running with scissors, or running LimeWire on your computer? I would argue that it is far safer to run with scissors, at least safer for the computer anyway. You always run the risk of getting viruses, spyware, malware, Trojans etc… when running any illegal download, whether it be on LimeWire or some other form of torrent. If you’re like me, you don’t run antivirus 24/7 or all the time while your computer is on. Well, you may call me crazy, but I’m not. I simply know where to download from and where not to download from, and what websites can be trusted and what websites cannot be trusted. But what if you download an EXE file that may contain a virus, but you’re not sure? Well you may want to take a look at www.virustotal.com

VirusTotal is a service that analyzes suspicious files and facilitates the quick detection of viruses, worms, trojans, and all kinds of malware detected by antivirus engines.

Specs:

* Free, independent service
* Use of multiple antivirus engines
* Real-time automatic updates of virus signatures

Virus Total is a free service, which will run any EXE file you give it, through 36 different virus scanners. These include AVG, Avast, Norton, NOD32, TechSmith and many more. Simply upload any EXE file, for detailed results from every scanner it went though!

So, to put it to the test, I upload a setup file of VNC free client edition. 3 of the antivirus programs picked it up as “RemoteAdmin” which simply means it would allow someone to access my computer. This is, of course, what VNC is designed to do anyway.

This can be very helpful, if you ever have any doubt about a program you downloaded. Don’t just run it by your 1 or 2 antivirus programs, run it through 36 of them at www.virustotal.com