FossHub announcing Jotti malware scan integration

Starting today "almost all*" FossHub uploads and software releases are scanned using Jotti's malware scan service.

Antivirus scan results provided by Jotti malware scan on FossHub

As you can see, FossHub just became much safer.

  1. Not just a query for a file signature - we scan the files we host. It means that we upload the file, run a check and show you the scan results with 15 antivirus engines.
  2. Antivirus products improve their detection rates each day, that's why we re-scan all the files we host later. Again and again.
  3. Auto-block feature: if we detect or suspect an infection we do not allow you to download that file until we have the confirmation it is safe.
Public results of the Jotti's malware scan if you click on "Antivirus" section.

You can check the Jotti's malware scan report if you click on the "Reported by Jotty's malware scan" link - bottom left.

Here is an external link example to see how you can check that the results we show are the same: https://virusscan.jotti.org/en-US/filescanjob/9pzcxgbd1b

After the file signatures check that you can run, now we also scan everything we upload and block automatically any suspicious file. We might run into some false positive detections, but still, our primary concern is to protect visitors.

Example of an infected file marked with a red color and a false positive with orange.

As we said, if you attempt to download files that are flagged as infected, on our site marked with the red color, we will disable the download, this way you can't risk to infect your machine - if the file is truly infected and not a false positive.

Browser response (download disabled) when attempting to download malware or suspicious file from FossHub

While this announcement might boost your confidence in FossHub, we still recommend you to check the files you download, each one of them.

No anti-malware product will keep you 100% safe from threats. No download service or site will be 100% reliable. The best firewall against threats is you. It is always a better idea to prevent an infection than trying to remove it.

What is Jotti

Just in case you are not aware, Jotti is one of the oldest and most trustworthy malware scan (it can detect viruses, trojans, keyloggers, rootkits, adware, spyware, etc.) services. It was launched back in 2004 and has proven to be a stable and reliable virus scan service. They currently allow uploads up to 250 MB per file, and the scan results are delivered fast.

Please keep in mind that Jotti will scan a file for malware using 15 Antivirus Engines; way better than using a single antivirus. If you use a different antivirus brand, other than those listed on Jotti, we encourage you to scan the files you download. If you have any doubt, feel free to check with another popular service such as VirusTotal. FossHub also uses VirusTotal as an additional service where we check suspicious files.

*Why "almost all" and not every one of them.

Simple, Jotti Malware Scan has a limit of 250 MB per uploaded file, the same with VirusTotal - it has an upload limit regarding the file size. Almost all means 99% of the data we host. What about the other 1% that are not scanned with Jotti or VirusTotal? We run a scan with a single antivirus and a favorite anti-malware product. Not the same thing but it is better than nothing.

You can read more about how safe is FossHub in our next blog post.