We recently heard of VirusTotal.com’s FREE web-based web address checker.
Have you received email which looks suspicious or has a link which you’re uncertain about? (This is how phishing often takes advantage of you!)
Right click on the link and copy the link address, then go to https://www.virustotal.com/gui/home/url and paste it in. It’ll return a rating as to whether it’s likely to be malicious or not.
It’s not perfect – I entered a link to an exploit reporting website and six out of 93 reports said it was malicious (it isn’t). But it will definitely give you a better idea as to the trustworthiness of any random URL you receive.
By the way, it works on most shortened URLs too: bit.ly, goo.gl, etc.