[SOLVED] How to know if download is safe?

[Imozeb]

I’ve read a lot on checking whether a download is safe or not, but there seems to be no sure fire way to know that an exe won’t harm my PC.

I’d like to download VoiceMeeter from here https://vb-audio.com/Voicemeeter/banana.htm

I ran the exe link through the standard online virus checking tool, namely virusTotal.com. It comes up clean. I also have McAfee antivirus installed on my Win 10 PC.

Is there anything else I can do to make sure it does not contain malware before downloading and installing?

Thank you.

 

[Wolfshadw]

Only other thing you can do is look online to see if anyone else is having issues since using the application. If there are reviews from legitimate sites, then it's probably safe, but there is no way to be 100% sure it's safe.

-Wolf sends

 

[MJS WARLORD]

Hello Imozeb , with all due respect to you the first thing i would recommend would be to get rid of your MacAfee anti virus and also use the MacAfee removal tool to get rid of registry left overs . I tried MacAfee and it was always missing threats , i got some bootleg software and scanned it but the av did not find anything , because i am a bit geeky i scanned the software with malwarebytes and it found lots of items that the av had missed. When using malwarebytes it does not always get rid of all segments on first pass so if it finds anything just repeat the scan until it finds nothing.

I used Norton 360 for many years but it uses a lot of processor so i changed to Kaspersky , both av programs have the ability to scan a download whilst it is happening and i have had instances where the av has destroyed the download because it found something it did not like . That said , even if it gets downloaded without anything happening you should still scan items.

Whenever i replace a pc i always keep the one i have been using , i use it as a spare for doing things such as downloading just in case something bad happens.

 

[digitalgriffin]

I’ve read a lot on checking whether a download is safe or not, but there seems to be no sure fire way to know that an exe won’t harm my PC.

I’d like to download VoiceMeeter from here https://vb-audio.com/Voicemeeter/banana.htm

I ran the exe link through the standard online virus checking tool, namely virusTotal.com. It comes up clean. I also have McAfee antivirus installed on my Win 10 PC.

Is there anything else I can do to make sure it does not contain malware before downloading and installing?

Thank you.

McAfee is pretty iffy as an AV. BitDefender is considered among the best and so is Kaspersky. But if you do anything questionable and have a sensitive job with sensitive information, I would stay away from Kaspersky.

 

[Imozeb]

Thanks for all the responses! I’ll look into Bitdefender and Kaspersky.