Using the Internet is almost a daily task and is very important in the lives of so many people today. There are things that are supposed to make surfing the Internet more fun and safer for you to do than ever before and there are also people that want to ruin the experience for you and get valuable information from you or from your computer. There are many ways to protect yourself from these unwanted and unwarranted online intrusions so that you can be safe and secure while using the Internet. Here is some information about finding free online virus scans to make your life a little safer and more convenient for using the Internet.
So why would someone even want to do and online virus scan?
There are many reasons why a person would want to use a free online virus scan on their computer. Sometimes you may want to check a specific file or e-mail to see if it is infected with a virus without running a complete scan on your computer with your anti-virus software you should already have installed. Getting a virus on your computer may be one of the worst things that could happen to it. They are aggressive, destructive and can sometimes end up shutting down and disabling an entire computer system. Other people may not have or want to have their own anti-virus software on their computer for any number of reasons, even though it is not recommended and so they may want to periodically use an online scan. It is often an easier and less expensive alternative to other ways of removing viruses.
One of the most obvious places to find a free online virus scan is by using a search engine such as Google or any other commonly used search engine. One of the benefits of using a search engine like Google is that it will often have very reputable results for the search from the very beginning. You may or may not find that clicking on the featured results (which are really just ads) will also get you to good places for a good online search. Sometimes these are put out by good companies, but they may be less reputable ones who really want to find out what is on your computer. It is best to go with names that are familiar to you and that you would trust to have a regular virus scanning program on your computer. The larger companies are often publicly held and have to report to their shareholders and so unethical behavior is less likely to happen. If something ever seems suspicious, you may want to proceed with caution.
Another good place to find free online virus scan is to look with reputable companies that produce anti-virus software and may have online versions that you can use for free on their websites. One place that online virus scans are frequently used is through e-mail service providers. Whenever an attachment is sent through the system it can be told to scan the attachment to make sure that there are not viruses attached to it that could infect the computer if downloaded. This is even routine with many e-mail companies so that there will always be a secure way to know if your e-mail is safe to open. You could take advantage of this service by sending a file that you may not be sure about and that you want to open to yourself in an e-mail and then scan it with the service to see if there are any threats that could harm your computer or make information you want private available to anyone else.