Malware Scan 3 files at once, using 20 scanners, with JottiQ

[CrimsonShade]

This is an edit of a post that originally appeared on Technically Motivated, titled JottiQ: Scan mutiple files for malware at once – and get the results without opening your browser. The original post can be seen at http://www.technicallymotivated.com/201 ... r-browser/ and contains program screenshots, more comprehensive coverage of the software mentioned and further download links.

Jotti’s malware scan (located at http://virusscan.jotti.org/en-gb) is a service that allows users to scan files with roughly 20 different anti-virus/anti-malware scanners and get a report from each. Users upload individual files to their website, and Jotti’s malware scan sends it to all the scanners, which then scan the file and report back the result. Jotti then collects and displays them on the page. You can only upload one file at a time, and there may be a delay before results come in, in order to prevent the server being overloaded.

JottiQ is a desktop program that extends the usability of Jotti’s malware scan (though it was created without the involvement of Jotti and is not endorsed by them). Its main purpose was to get around the single-file limitation for those who have a need to scan several files at once, but there’s many more things it can do. Unlike the website, JottiQ has the ability to simultaneously scan up to three files, while the rest of the files users add are queued up and scanned in order. Another useful thing about JottiQ is that you don’t need to use your browser to see the results – they appear in the program as well! Once files are scanned, JottiQ displays the virus scan results right inside the program window. Of course, you have the option to go to the online results page as well, if you so want. Just click a finished scan, and press F4, or use the right-click menu option. Using the online page does have one advantage: You can link others to the results.

JottiQ also can add itself to your computer's File Context Menu, which is its most useful feature in my opinion. To make it easy to scan files, JottiQ has the ability to add itself to the menu you see when you right-click any file on your computer, through which you can quickly send that file to JottiQ. Having this right-click context menu entry is completely optional and users can remove it at any time.

One thing to bear in mind is that Jotti’s malware scan has a 20MB file size limit. JottiQ does not and cannot circumvent this restriction, so if you try to scan too large a file, it will be rejected. This is basically the same as any other similar service, though, and is mainly done for speed reasons. It is not a weakness of JottiQ or Jotti itself.

A while ago, when JottiQ was first released, it turned out to be WAY too popular, and the mass amount of users using it to scan millions of files at once, greatly overloaded their servers. To prevent this happening again, JottiQ now uses a few tricks to reduce the footprint it has on the service. Firstly, now and then you may find JottiQ “throttling” uploads/scans. If this happens to you, there is no need to worry or panic; that just means JottiQ has noticed that the Jotti servers are a bit busy now, and so it’s waiting until Jotti’s malware scan servers are not so overloaded before it sends the file for scanning. You actually don’t even have to do anything except wait because JottiQ will automatically upload/scan “throttled” files using Jotti’s malware scan when the server allows for it. In fact once you add a file into JottiQ, you don’t need to worry about it; JottiQ makes sure all queued files are scanned… eventually. Another way JottiQ prevents overloading Jotti’s malware scan servers is before it uploads a file to be scanned, it conducts a MD5 hash of the file and compares it to the MD5 hash of programs already scanned by Jotti’s malware scan. If the MD5 hashes match, that means the file has already been scanned using Jotti’s malware scan and instead of uploading and rescanning the file, the previous scan results are shown.

To conclude, while JottiQ is in no way a replacement for your anti-malware security software, JottiQ is a very useful program and can give real peace of mind if you download things often or are just paranoid of getting infected. Check it out at: http://whitehat.dcmembers.com/pages/software/jottiq.php