Secunia's Online Scan

General Topics
1

Dear Forum,

Has Secunia ceased offering its free online scan?

Cheers,

Avastfan1

2

Ahhh. Just found the link again!

Please ignore this message.

Have a good week.

3

http://secunia.com/vulnerability_scanning/online/?task=load
asyn

Edit: Just saw you already found it, I’ll leave the link anyway.

4

Ich danke Ihnen sehr!

Avastfan1

5

Bitte, gerne…! :wink:
asyn

6

Hi Asyn,

Power updaters and experienced PSI users now are going to install their new auto-updater, download this windows tool here:
http://secunia.com/PSISetupAUTP.exe
Enjoy,

friend Damian

7

Personally I prefer the OSI On-line scanner as I don’t have to install and update the PSI version.

8

+1

9

Makes sense. On the other hand, I use PSI because it provides much better coverage. Fortunately, the program doesn’t require frequent updating. From
http://secunia.com/vulnerability_scanning/online (my bold):

The Secunia Online Software Inspector, or short OSI, is a fast way to scan your PC for the most common programs and vulnerabilities, thus checking if your PC has a minimum security baseline against known patched vulnerabilities.

Use the Secunia OSI to get a feel for the Secunia Software Inspector technology, then upgrade to the Secunia PSI or CSI, which covers practically all programs on your PC, whereas the OSI checks less than 100 programs.

10

Thank you, Damian. I didn’t know about this one.

Just a heads-up. This is strictly a technology preview release which Secunia would like some people to test and provide feedback on. I’ll probably let others do the testing on this one and wait for its official release some time down the road.
http://secunia.com/community/forum/thread/show/4447/psi_auto_update_technology_preview_tp_available

11

I’ve used the regular PSI on demand scanner and found it to offer much more info. than the OSI scanner. But PSI is not available to dial-up users.

12

I’m pretty sure PSI can be used with dial-up, SafeSurf. What makes you think otherwise?

13

I also prefer the OSI On-line scanner. I have the link on my bookmarks bar (Chrome, but also bmrked on Firefox) and its an easy process to run the scan through.

However, OSI does not seem to be rendering the details of the scan results for some reason, only the general result. I’m not sure how long this has been the case, and not sure if anyone else is experiencing the problem. I first noticed about a week ago when testing a client’s computer, and today, on one of my own computers.

So what I have done is upgrade to PSI and will trial that for a while. Previously - as DavidR has pointed out - I was turned off by the need to update, although I did have PSI installed. Unwilling to go thru the extra tasks, I tended to fall a bit behind date so I switched back to OSI.

Today, first PSI scan ran through and picked up that my Patch Tuesday releases had still to download. I clicked through to Microsoft update and brought the computer up to date. See how I go go from here on. and wait for reports on what is happen with OSI.

14

There is nothing to stop a dial-up user installing and running PSI as in theory it doesn’t need a connection other than to get updates.

I had it installed and it worked fine, I just didn’t like the fact that I had to constantly update it (before I ran it) as there is little point in having this without it being fully up to date.

15

+1

I had it installed and it worked fine, I just didn't like the fact that I had to constantly update it (before I ran it) as there is little point in having this without it being fully up to date.
Read what [b]Alan Baxter[/b] had to say in: http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=60608.msg511473#msg511473
Use the Secunia OSI to get a feel for the Secunia Software Inspector technology, then [b]upgrade to the Secunia PSI or CSI, which covers practically all programs on your PC, whereas the OSI checks less than 100 programs.[/b]

I do not have Secunia PSI autostart on my XP Pro system but it works great on my Windows 7 64bit system.

16

I read what Alan had to say, I know that PSI checks more applications )I had it installed before), but that doesn’t get away from the fact that if you don’t keep it up to date then there is little point in having it at all.

I keep all my security related application up to date, there is little point in having it if you don’t keep it up to date. It is just my personal choice that this additional checking isn’t worth the constant having to up date it, than just the OSI which really deals with the more critical issues.

17

I’m not sure I understand your scenario here. The program itself needs updates only every few months or so. If you mean the vulnerability database updates, those are only done while PSI does its scan – done either manually with Scan > Start Scan or automatically every week or so – and then only for the programs already installed on the computer. By “ran it”, do you mean select “Start Scan” from the Scan pane? When PSI is launched, it’s scanning for any changes to the installed programs, not updating the vulnerability info.

I don’t have PSI configured to start up with my computer. I use it in Advanced mode, and unchecked Settings > Start the Secunia PSI on boot. I launch PSI once a week while I’m connected to the Internet, let it take a few minutes to see if I’ve changed any of the programs (I don’t think this is necessary, but it’s just a background task anyhow.), and then select “Start Scan” from the Scan pane. On my small, slow computer the scan takes about nine minutes to scan its 20GB of files.

Perhaps you use PSI differently than I do, but I respect your decision that, for you, PSI is more trouble than it’s worth.

18

Regarding PSI and dial-up, I kept getting a prompt from Secunia that it will “become available in the near future,” but I was unable to use it on d-u. Keep in mind that my d-u is really s-l-o-w. It’s been a while since I have tried this, and I therefore switch the d-u PC onto highspeed when I need to use PSI or other major D/L’s, so perhaps it is now available and wasn’t aware of it.