Google announces that the VirusTotal Uploader is available for Mac users, too!

The VirusTotal is a subsidiary of Google, a free online service that analyses files and URLs enabling the identification of viruses, worms, Trojans and other kinds of malicious content. Its mission is to improve the antivirus and security industry. The free service runs multiple antivirus engines and website scanners, multiple file and URL characterization tools, makes real time updates of virus signatures and blacklists and offers detailed results from each scanner. The VirusTotal is the official windows desktop application.

Today, Google announced that the VirusTotal Uploader will be released for OS X, too, allowing Mac users to upload suspicious files for scanning. So all they need to do is a right-click on any file and select the relevant option from the context menu. The goal behind today’s release is to lead VirusTotal to receiving more Mac applications, “diving deeper into an increasingly targeted OS by attackers and allowing antivirus companies and researchers making use of VirusTotal’s backend to build stronger defenses against these threats.” Acquired by Google in September 2012 and wants to keep it as an independent operation.

VirusTotal Uploader also aims to protect mobile devices so there is an available app, too, wearing the same name as the desktop application. The process of scanning can be simplified by installing browser extensions that allow users to download files directly with VirusTotal ‘s web app prior to storing the files. For Mozilla Firefox, the extension is called VTZilla and the scanning options and embedded in Firefox’s context menu and download dialog. For Google Chrome, the extension is called VTchromizer, but unlike VTzilla, this extension does not embed itself in the browser’s download dialog, only in the context menu.  Files can be scanned by right-clicking them and choosing the “scan” option.  For Internet Explorer, the extension is called VTexplorer and it can be used by right-clicking on the link to the file and choosing the “send URL ro VirusTotal option”.