We have previously mentioned Metascan on TrishTech as a very impressive online scanner app that can take a file that you suspect to be malware and scan it with more than forty different antivirus engines. This is not much different from the popular VirusTotal online malware scanner. Both VirusTotal and Metascan are great for scanning the downloaded files for malware before you run them on your computer. But now you can add the Metascan Online to your Google Chrome browser, so that it can automatically scan all the files that download in Google Chrome. This saves us from the trouble of manually uploading the downloaded files to these online malware scanners to check them for malware. Metascan Online extension for Chrome handles all the necessary steps by itself and shows you the results.
Although Metascan Online makes your life easy when scanning suspicious files for malware, it takes a little lengthy path to set it up in Chrome. Here is how you can setup Metascan Online in Chrome and use it to scan your downloads:
- First of all visit the Opswat Portal and create an account. This requires supplying your email address along with other basic information, verifying your email address, supplying even more information before you can finally login to your Opswat Portal account. Once there, click on Metascan Online API link to generate a Metascan API key for use with their Chrome extension.
- The Metascan Online API key is 32 character long key that can be used to scan 25 files per hour and check file hashes for 1000 file every hour. Copy this API key and paste in Notepad for later use.
- Now in the Chrome browser install the Metascan Online extension. When the installation is over, you can see the “M” icon in the toolbar. Click on this “M” icon, and select Enter Your API Key as shown.
- A new page will open up where you have to enter the Metascan Online API key that you obtained from the Opswat Portal. Paste this key in the given text box and click on the Submit button.
- Once the API key has been submitted, you are all ready to use the Metascan Online extension in Chrome. One of the ways you can use the Metascan Online extension is by scanning the files that you want to download. You can right-click on the download links and choose Scan File with Metascan Online from the context-menu.
- This will download the file temporarily on your PC before uploading it to the Metascan Online servers where it is scanned against more than 40 different antivirus engines having latest virus databases. A summary of the scan results is soon displayed.
- If you want Metascan Online to scan all the files that you download off the internet, then you can click on the “M” icon in the Chrome toolbar and then check the checkbox labeled Scan all downloads. This will cause Metascan Online to scan all the files that you download.
Conclusion: Metascan Online extension for Chrome brings an additional layer of security when download files from the internet. It can automatically scan all the downloaded files using more than forty antivirus engines and display you the results immediately.
You can get the Metascan Online extension for Chrome from https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/metascan-online-for-chrom/fjampemfhdfmangifafmianhokmpjbcj.