VirusTotal add-on for Mozilla Firefox

If you are suspicious if a file or web page is infected with a virus, then you can scan it using VirusTotal. The free VirusScan service can scan a file with a multitude of anti-virus engines and display the results. Now an add-on for scanning files and web pages using VirusTotal, called VTZilla, is available for Firefox. Using this add-on you can quickly check if a downloaded file is infected or the contents of a web page are malicious. Here is how :

  1. Visit http://www.virustotal.com/advanced.html#browser-addons in your Firefox browser.
  2. Scroll down the web page and click on the link labeled VTZilla Firefox plugin as shown,

  3. Firefox will ask you if you want to allow installation of an add-on. Choose Allow

  4. You will get the usual prompt to install the add-on. Follow the process and restart Firefox to finish the installation.

Scan web pages

After the installation of the VTZilla add-on and restarting the Firefox browser, you are ready to scan files and web sites. When you visit a web site now, you would see a button labeled Scan current site. This would scan the currently open web site (open in the currently active tab).

Firefox will open a new webpage and VirusTotal will scan the currently open web site and show the results in a few seconds. The web site URLs are checked against seven different databases. This makes it even more safe to check a web site than just scanning using one database. For example, Internet Explorer scan the URLs using just the SmartScreen. Google Chrome scans the URLs using just the Google Safebrowsing. But if you scan a URL with VirusTotal, you get results from seven databases as shown,

Scan downloadable files

We all get suspicious of download files from unknown web sites. With VirusTotal add-on VTZilla installed, you can just consult more than 30 anti-virus engines, if the said downloaded file is infected. Just click on the download link and you would see an extra option in the file download dialog — Scan with VirusTotal. Choose this option, click OK and the link will be scanned with VirusTotal.

VirusTotal will show the WebScan results for the downloadable link. If you want to see the anti-virus analysis of the downloadable file, then click on the link labeled View downloadable file analysis on the WebScan report webpage.

You will be taken to the anti-virus analysis web page. Depending on the web site load, after some time you will see the results. The downloadable file is checked by 34 anti-virus engines with latest updated virus databases.