You can never tell for sure if a file that you have downloaded from the Internet is safe. If you discover a suspicious file on your machine, or suspect that a program you downloaded from the internet might be malicious, then you can use the free FortiGuard Online Scanner to scan this file. The FortiGuard Online Scanner scans the uploaded files using the FortiClient antivirus.
You can scan a single file or a group of files. If you want to scan more than one file, then you have to archive them together into a ZIP archive. You can use an archiving software like WinZip or WinRAR. The total size of the file should not be more than 1 MB.
To start scanning open the FortiGuard Online Scanner web page at http://www.fortiguard.com/antivirus/virus_scanner.html in your web browser. You will find a simple upload form – a Browse button and a Scan button.
Click on the Browse button and choose the file to scan for. If you want to scan more than one file, then zip them together and choose the ZIP archive instead. Click the Scan button after selecting the file.
After few seconds, you would see the results. If the file you have uploaded contains malicious files, then you will see the name of one of the malware in red color as shown. If you uploaded many files in an archive, you will not be shown the results for all the individual files but only for one of the infected files.
If the uploaded file(s) are clean, then you would see a confirmation in the green color as shown.
FortiGuard Online Scanner is a handy tool to check the downloaded files and documents for malware before you try to run or open them. If you already have an antivirus product installed, then you can get a second opinion using the FortiGuard Online Scanner.