The software we use ourselves in the workshop, all free and downloadable from their publisher. None is hosted here: you get them from the source.
Let's be clear from the start: a website has no access to your files, your programs or your registry. The browser prevents it, and that's a good thing. Any site displaying “3 viruses detected on your PC” is lying, without exception - it's the scheme described on our computer scams page.
A real check requires software installed on the machine. Here are the ones that do it honestly.
These tools run on demand and coexist with your usual antivirus. That's precisely the point: a second opinion, from a different engine than the one that saw nothing.
On-demand scanner, signed by Microsoft. It doesn't install and expires after ten days: you re-download it each time, which guarantees up-to-date signatures.
A second opinion with a reputation for strictness. Despite its name, it runs on the machine - “online” refers only to the signature updates.
Standalone disinfection tool, effective on stubborn infections. It can run in safe mode, when everything else refuses to start.
The free version scans and cleans on demand. The paid trial activates on its own: remember to decline it if you don't want it.
Specialized in what antivirus software lets through: toolbars, forced search engines, adware and programs installed without your knowledge.
The reflex to adopt when facing an unexpected attachment or a link received by message.
Upload a file or an address, and around sixty engines examine it. Careful: any file sent becomes accessible to the service's analysts - never upload a confidential document.
Tells you whether your email address appears in a known data breach. If so, the associated password must be changed everywhere you reused it.
Slowness or crashes don't always come from a virus. A failing drive or a faulty memory module produce exactly the same symptoms, and no antivirus will see them.
Reads the drive's SMART indicators and states its condition in one word. A drive marked “Caution” should be replaced before failure, not after.
Every temperature and sensor on the machine. Useful when the computer slows down or shuts off by itself: it's often heat, not a virus.
Tests RAM from a USB stick, outside Windows. A faulty module causes blue screens and unexplained file corruption.
When disinfection is no longer enough, or when the machine no longer starts at all.
Windows 10 and 11 disk images, and the media creation tool, from the publisher. It's the only source to use: copies found elsewhere are regularly tampered with.
Creates a bootable USB installer from a disk image. It can also download the image directly from Microsoft, using the button next to “Select”.
Shows absolutely everything that starts up, far beyond Task Manager. Expert tool: disabling the wrong entry makes Windows unusable.
A scanner detects and removes what it knows. It won't tell you whether your passwords were harvested before disinfection, whether a session is still open elsewhere, or whether your bank was accessed. After a serious infection, changing important passwords from another, clean machine matters as much as the cleanup itself.
And if your files are already encrypted and a ransom is demanded, don't scan anything: shut down, disconnect from the network, call. A badly timed scan can destroy the traces that sometimes allow data recovery. See emergency IT support.
We run the scan for you, remotely, and you see everything happening on screen.
