Any online scanners?

I am going tomorrow to my sister's family and their F-Secure has not been updated for 9 days. Sorry to post this thread cause the information could be found I believe in the existing threads already. But lately I have not been in the mood for reading too much security stuff.

And I have myself used a few such scanners, but my knowledge as of now is sure old. So I am curious if any scanners can be run that don't install really as an AV but only to test the system for viruses. The system in question is an XP Home windows puter.

Jarmo

 

You could download Dr.Web CureIt...it's free, only a scanner, no install. Only drawback is that for update, you must download it again (~8MB). Updates are released several times a day.

Kaspersky offers an online full scan. Last time I checked, it only worked with IE.

 

Many online scanners are listed here.

Also you may consider Prevx CSI for ondemand scanning.

 

The KAV online scan offers detection only, but their offline AVP tool is updated several times each day and offers detestion/removal + custom scan parameters.

http://downloads5.kaspersky-labs.com/devbuilds/AVPTool/

 

I would recommend not using a Panda scan.

If I recall correctly, during/before the scan (you won't see it coming) Panda copies files to your windows directories ! Not something I'd want.

(I'd presume it would be difficult to get rid of those, just as it has been/is difficult to remove their regular programs).

 

@Fly

To be honest , ALL scanners copy their files on the hard drive . Otherwise they wound't be able to operate . Most do it in %windir% or in the system dir (like Panda does) , some place in %ProgramFiles%. Once you uninstall the program even if there are leftovers , they are not problem to manually delete.

 

If you have Returnil or similar running then it is possible to run many on demand scans without contaminating your machine. Ran Prevx CSI earlier today just to be sure - nothing found.

 

Last I knew they also depend on active-x. Strange, IMO, that a security related program would rely on a known security vulnerability.
Cure-it, as well as Ewido-micro are fine stand alone options.

 

I believe Trend Micro's Housecall has the option of running the scanner utilizing javascript instead of active-x.

 

May very well be benny bronx. But again javascript has its` exploits as well. I do believe on-line scanners have their place as an additional security "second opinion". From what I understand their detection rates are not bad but their removal ability for those that offer it is lacking. I just do not use them.

 

Jarmo P: just download Dr. Web Cure-It and run it, like Hurst has said, and you'll be all set.

 

Can be run from a USB flash drive and in safe mode as well. Has saved several of my Clients PCs when they were so infested safe mode or a nuke and repave were the only options.

 

The problem with panda is that signatures are not encrypted

EXEs can contain malware as well

 

EXEs are necessary evil so to speak. Also not the only type of file that can. But with the proper precautions it can be minimized.

 

Well ... I've used some online scanners, and they only one I have NOTICED to copy files in a/the windows system directories is Panda.

And how are you supposed to delete the Panda files ? Writing down at light speed which files are copies where ?
Maybe some windows system files are overwritten with the Panda version.
I really don't want my windows system files being changed by Panda. (Or how the windows OS works)

For example, consider the A-Squared malware online scan. It requires the installation of an ActiveX and the downloading of the signature file. When you're done scanning, you can remove the ActiveX and the signature file (located in %temp%).