Safe Screensaver Download
Today I’m going to talk about screensavers, or to be more specific: screensavers for Windows.
If you ever have had the desire to personalize your pc or wanted to change the screensaver, you have probably run into the many websites that offers free screensavers, whether it is celebrity screensavers or just regular free screensavers there is probably a chance that you have accidently downloaded something malicious that infected your computer with a virus. In many cases that have turned people away from getting the screensaver they desire or the wallpaper that would express just what they would have wanted their computer to say. But surely that shouldn’t scare away you from getting what you want should it? No of course not, so I am going to tell you how to be aware and check the files you download before you install them.
The trick behind finding safe screensavers
VirusTotal is a service where you can upload a file or input a link and have it tested for known virus signatures. It takes the file or link and scans it with all of the biggest antivirus companies’ database and many other lesser known companies’ databases. And when the process is finished you get a result that tells you whether or not the file is infected. When getting results from virustotal you may notice that a single or two scans tested positive. Usually when just a few antivirus’ react on the file it means it is a false positive. Maybe the file has the ability to download something from the internet or it contains a filename that some virus has been seen with. But it is easy to spot whether they’re showing a real threat or a false positive and that is if the infection description contains words suspected and generic.
So next time when you find a screensaver or any file really, then scan it with virustotal and then afterwards you can install it with ease of mind, if the screensaver is safe that is.
If you’re interested in making your own screensaver you can read my blog post on how to make your own screensaver on my blog.
Good luck finding your desired safe screensavers!
NOTE: if you’re interested in free celebrity screensavers you can check out my homemade screensavers on the free celebrity screensavers site.
