Have you came across a situation where you didn’t have an antivirus? I am not too sure about you, but I did. I am not talking about the new computer which you had just bought from a trusted computer store. This is because new computers are usually very clean and scanning your new computer is the last thing you want to do on top of installing all the necessary software.
So when did I come across the situation where I didn’t have an antivirus? The answer is, when my computer was infected with a Malware. At that moment, I couldn’t use my antivirus to scan my computer. The malware was so annoying where my computer was non-stop getting pop-ups and unknown errors.
[Read also: 5 Worst Computer Viruses in History]
At that time, I thought my best solution was to format my computer but I wasn’t ready to do so simply because I did not have a good backup practice at that time. Finally, I was lucky enough to scan my computer and remove those malware without using an antivirus.
So what did I use instead?
I used an online virus scanner to do the job. At that moment, I could only think of using the Trend Micro Housecall, one of the online virus scanners that I recommended to my friends but today, there are plenty of online virus scanners out there.
Sometimes, when you have an old computer which you do not access the internet frequently; you could skip the antivirus installation simply because antivirus use quite a lot of resources. As an alternative, you could do a weekly scan with an online virus scanner instead.
The proper way to scan your computer and remove Malware
These are the steps which I did to scan my computer when antivirus was not around.
- Restart your computer.
- Press F8 or F6 to go to the SAFE MODE.
- Remember to choose the option of SAFE MODE with NETWORKING. Otherwise, you will not be able to run the online virus scanner.
- Go to the Trend Micro Housecall – the online scanner edition.
- Download the application and start scanning.
- Remove whatever infections found unless you know very well that the file is not an infection.
The reason I asked you to boot into the Safe Mode is simply because you can remove whatever file without having the dependency. Some Malware are not able to be removed on a normal mode due to certain critical dependencies that it claims to have.
The best thing about online scanners is they are totally free. You don’t have to pay anything for the service to get your Malware removed. If you happen to come across an online scanner that you need to pay, skip it and go for another alternative.
Remember that each Malware has their own behavior and causes different computer security risks. It is never safe to let a Malware staying alive in your computer for too long. I am very sure that you don’t want to wake up the next morning seeing your bank account had been emptied by some cyber criminals.
Thanks Alan for this awesome information. I never heard about this one. Its good that we can scan our pc online also.
Hope this post will help you, Atish. There are many more online scanners out there that you should check out 😉
This article is a great help to every people who are using computer. Yes, when anybody’s computer is running without antivirus then he or she can scan the computer by free online scanners like Trend Micro Housecall. Also the steps of scanning computer by online scanner are very helpful. Thanks for this awesome post.
Yes Kenneth. Not having an antivirus is not the end of the world. I think not having the internet is the end of the world to most people now.
Although I currently don’t have the need for the online Trend Micro scan I will keep it in mind you never know what might come up. Your article about booting in Safe Mode did get me thinking about a file I have on my computer that I can’t delete though. I have a file that I downloaded from my hosting account that didn’t fully download for some reason, and now it won’t let me delete the thing. I even tried using windows command line. Now I am thinking I should try booting in Safe Mode and trying to delete the thing to see if it will work. Thanks for getting me thinking.
Probably it is your download manager or web browser is locking the file. You should be able to remove them from there. Although safe mode is the best place to get everything removed, but it is not recommended if you do not know what you are doing.
Wow, this is useful for me. I am now using Microsoft Security Essential and I am not sure whether or not it is working as I never seen any message prompt out so far. haha
Online scanner is going to be your second opinion, Tan.
I used to have a lot of problems with my desktops until 2006 since I disabled any form of antivirus and such. Not anymore. Occasionally I have to do a system restore but that’s very rare. Good to do it regularly and also before and after any software installation. Actually a system restore can fix problems no antivirus can. Thanks for the post!
Well George, you could say system restore fix a problem but it seems to be avoiding the problem. Not everyone will do a lot of system restore to fix problem and I find your solution is pretty unique.
Hi Alan and nice to meet you here! As always, you always have good advice for everyone! Until now, I didn’t have a lot of confidence in online scanners and always I was always scanning for malware from Safety Mode with an offline scanner (M. Bytes) but from now on I’m going to do online scans, since they are up to date when you do the scan.
What a tip mhan..!! 🙂 Just few question Alan, is Trend Micro good? I have actually never tried it.. & how regularly this activity of online scanning should be performed – daily?
Only when necessary, Zainil. Unless you don’t have AV installed, then you will need to do it frequently
Great piece of information, but still prefer to have an antivirus loaded in my system.
Hi Alan,
I found this post on Justretweet. I think I’m bit late here. I have Windows XP SP2 on my system. If I upgrade to Win 7 or Win8 will it work. Thanks for sharing.
Yes! If we can’t to install anti virus to Scan PC or have no time to download and install then Online Virus Scanner is the best choice.