Windows users need to have a decent antivirus program running on
their PC for security problems. Microsoft is trying hard to solve this
problem since early days by providing extra software for security scan. Microsoft Security Essentials and Windows Defender are few of them released by the company for its own operating system. And with Windows 8, they are providing a better Windows Defender
(in-build antivirus program with better protection and security) to get
rid of the expensive third-party antivirus or anti-malware programs.
Even after installing a security programs like the one mentioned
above, you may see some suspicious behavior on your PC, in case the antivirus definition is not up to date or some recent virus or malware programs hit your system. If you think or doubt that some malicious software is slowing your system performance or causing blue screen of death, it is essential to scan the system completely and find if it has been hit or infected by some malware.
Third-party antivirus programs are not that expensive (at least for
their purpose and peace of mind you get after installing and keep
running them) but still you need to pay for that (except from some free antivirus software like AVG).
If you don’t want to keep running an antivirus or anti-malware programs
always on your computer because you think it may slow down your system
or is expensive, you can try free scanners every time to just find out if your system is safe enough.
Kaspersky, a leading antivirus/anti-malware software maker, has released a free scanning tool named “Kaspersky Security Scan 2.0” which can scan your Windows PC for such infection. You can download the installation file from this page
and install that on your system. The EXE file is of ~44 MB and will
take few minutes for complete system scan (depending on your hard disk
and data size). You can also schedule the software to scan your system
on weekly or daily basis.
Note – It only scan the system and notify about the infection. It doesn’t remove the viruses (if found) or disinfect the system. To do that, you will have to purchase or renew a decent third-party software or Microsoft’s security products to scan and disinfect the system.
Apart from the Security Scan tool by Kaspersky, there are many free
online scanning tools also available. But I would recommend you to have a
native software (like Kaspersky Scan Tool) as it will take less time to
scan the complete system without providing any authority to those
online scanners.
Norton is also having a free scan tool named “Norton Security Scan and Security Check”.
You can either download the tool which will automatically scan your
system for security concerns every week OR you can use their online
scanning tools as well.
