The Virustotal online virus scanning service is one of the services that I use on a regular basis. Whenever I find a great looking software in a “not so great” location, I use the service to check the software out before I execute it on my system. This is for instance the case when software authors host their files on file hosting sites, and not on their own web space.
The old Virustotal had a file size limit of 20 Megabyte which worked fine for most executables and setups, but not for all. If you encountered a single file that exceeded the 20 Megabyte limit, you could not use the service to scan it at all. The service had other issues that users encountered every now and then, like large queues or pages that were not loading properly.
The developers have recently updated the service website and virus scanning service that improves Virustotal considerably.
When you open the service’s homepage you will notice two of the changes right away.
The first is a new professional feel and look, the second that Virustotal now accepts file sizes of up to 32 Megabytes. That’s a reasonable 60% increase that should resolve the majority of “file size to big” issues that users encountered previously on the site.
Once you upload a file you will notice that the reporting interface has changed as well.
The url scanner is now supporting a total of 19 different scan engines that includes a mix of well known (Google Safebrowsing, Opera, Phishtank) and lesser known services. Some url scanning services provide additional information that are now also displayed in the scan results.
Virustotal has moved to Google’s App Engine Service which, according to the developers, speeds up the analysis significantly. Developers of third party apps now benefit from faster response times thanks to a public API update.
Virustotal has improved significantly thanks to the recent update. Especially the maximum file size increase needs to be mentioned in this regard.
Have you used the new version yet? If so, what is your impression of the service? (via Dottech)
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There were a few days when I had a difficult time accessing VT at all. Then, when it came up, I was suspicious. It didn’t look like the Virus Total I knew. A little investigation told me it was an update, so I went ahead and uploaded my files.
Once I was oriented, it was the same Virust Total I’ve depended on for so long. Very happy to see the MG increase. I was always and forever trying to send bigger files. Now, no problem.
Yes I remember those days as well, where the site would not load at all, or was very slow.
There is no new version of the VirusTotal Uploader.
Apparently it works with the new size limit unlike
when the limit went from 10 MB to 20 and
the prior upholder needed upgrading.
That’s good to know, thanks Robert.