We have previously posted about many other QR scanners that check for potentially harmful QR codes before. And all of them perform more or less the same way with the only difference being that they all use different antivirus engines or malicious URL database for vetting and blocking the maliciously designed QR codes. If you own an Android device then, you have yet another option to consider for a good QR code scanner – G Data QR Scanner. It can scan your QR codes, check them for any malicious or harmful content and also saves the original code snapshot in the history.
With the QR scanner from G Data Security, you can scan the QR code as you would usually. But perhaps due to some internal programming of the app, the QR scanning does not seem to work easily. You have to hold the smartphone camera steadily over a QR code for some time before it is registered by the app. And then it scans the QR code using G Data’s online database (you must be connected to the internet for this to work).
The results shown include the the URL and an indication of whether the URL is malicious or not. You can open this URL in the default web browser or share it with friends through all the various apps installed in your smartphone.
G Data QR Scanner saves the history of all the QR codes in your smartphone. Not only it stores the QR codes and the results of the scanning them, but it also stores the actual image that you snapped when scanning those QR codes. This could be helpful later on when you are trying to figure out where you scanned a QR code from. But if you do not like this history, then you can always clear the scanning history by tapping on the small bin icon.
Conclusion: G Data QR Scanner is a basic QR code scanner with built in malicious URL protection provided by the G Data Security’s database. It can protect you from harmful links hidden inside the publicly posted QR codes.
You can download G Data QR Scanner for Android from https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.gdata.gdatascanner.