Safety Scanner

As ubiquitous as antivirus scanning should be, plenty of computers aren’t running this essential protection. When one of these vulnerable systems crosses your path, you'll be glad to have the following free antivirus scanner in your toolbox—Safety Scanner, part of Windows Live OneCare from Microsoft.

Windows Live OneCare is a PC maintenance and security product that costs $49.95 per year and includes antivirus, antispyware, centralized automatic backups, patch management, printer sharing, and maintenance features to tune up your PC. This product is useful for many small office/home office (SOHO) users as their primary protection and maintenance software. However, the tool I'm going to show you is the free version of this service: Safety Scanner.

Even if you work for a large company and use commercial antivirus software, you'll still find Safety Scanner useful. I keep the URL for Safety Scanner in my toolkit for when I need to scan a computer that might not have antivirus software installed or when I want a second opinion from another scanner. A second opinion isn’t a bad idea if the computer is acting erratically but your primary antivirus software doesn’t find anything, or if the computer has been infected and you want to be sure your primary antivirus software has cleaned it completely. (I don’t recommend this free version of Safety Scanner as your primary antivirus software, however, as it isn’t designed for continuous, real-time protection.) Let's take a closer look at this helpful tool. . . .