This is a free online, on-demand, scanning system provided courtesy of BitDefender. As with other systems of this type, it is useful as a double check that your PC is clean of infection or as a second opinion if a different product finds a virus. It should not be considered a replacement for an installed on-access virus checker. This system cannot stop you from being infected. It checks your system memory and boot sector, email and drives / directories of your choice. Archived files can be check and an autoclean function to disinfect files is also available.   There is a optional reporting function for Bitdefender's Real Time Virus Reporting system (R.T.V.R) which analyses in the wild threats.  Click here to go to  Bitdefender's Real Time Virus Reporting system.

There is no configuration required on your part, simply press the Scan Me icon below to initiate the scan. You will be asked to accept the licensing terms (don't worry - this service is free) and once you do this a small piece of software will be installed on your machine. The installation should only take a couple of minutes on a 56Kbps connection and once this has finished you will be given the option to enable Real Time Virus Reporting.  Real time reporting helps the anti-virus industry track the spread of viruses in the wild and can also be useful in identifying new, unknown viruses. By participating in real time reporting schemes (a number of vendors run them) you are joining a community of concerned citizens who assist anti-virus vendors in protecting our electronic infrastructure.  No personal data about you, your PC or the files you scan  is used in this reporting process. The only details submitted are your country, the total number of scanned files, the total number of infected files (if any) and the name of the virus/es found (if any). The box to allow reporting is enable by default, if you don't wish to automatically submit reports then you need to deselect the tick. If you do want to report then you should select your country from the list. The service should now check for the latest updates and copy them to your machine. If you have a personal Firewall installed it may ask you if you want to allow AVXLive 20 MFC to access the Internet, this is the BitDefender Live! module and needs to be able to access the Internet to download the latest virus signatures. When you first use the service it may take up to ten minutes on a 56Kbps connection to download the updates. This download process becomes significantly shorter after the initial download. To run a scan:

If you wish to stop the scan when it in progress, press the Stop Scanning button.

Once complete either close your browser or navigate to a different window, there is no application to quit.

The next time you choose an  OnLine Scan there will be no application to install and the system will immediately check for updates. Subsequent updates should be a  lot quicker than when you first use the system.

As mentioned above, on-demand scanning cannot stop you from becoming infected. You need to install a virus checking application that can intercept viruses (known as on-access scanning). The Virus Protection section of this site mentions a number of products that can provide you with preventative protection to reduce your chances of  becoming infected. These products, some free of charge, are available from a number of vendors, including BitDefender.