Question about links & downloads

[10]

I'm not sure where to put this questions but..

When people on this forum post links to downloads, what are some ways to scan the links and downloaded content to make sure it's safe? I use virustotal to scan the links and the sometimes the links gets flagged from 1 or 2 companies. So I'm questioning if virustotal is even worth using.

[1.759]

I'm not sure where to put this questions but..

When people on this forum post links to downloads, what are some ways to scan the links and downloaded content to make sure it's safe? I use virustotal to scan the links and the sometimes the links gets flagged from 1 or 2 companies. So I'm questioning if virustotal is even worth using.

Scanning a link makes no sense because what you're essentially doing is looking for malware in the download page itself; the engines won't download anything from that page.
You can either run all executables inside a virtual machine or use some more sophisticated online sandbox analysis tools for malware, like cuckoo.cert.ee, any.run.
It may take some time for you to learn how they work, but it's worth it.

[10]

I'm not sure where to put this questions but..

When people on this forum post links to downloads, what are some ways to scan the links and downloaded content to make sure it's safe? I use virustotal to scan the links and the sometimes the links gets flagged from 1 or 2 companies. So I'm questioning if virustotal is even worth using.

Scanning a link makes no sense because what you're essentially doing is looking for malware in the download page itself; the engines won't download anything from that page.
You can either run all executables inside a virtual machine or use some more sophisticated online sandbox analysis tools for malware, like cuckoo.cert.ee, any.run.
It may take some time for you to learn how they work, but it's worth it.

Thank you! I'll check them out :)