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by eli 4000 days ago
A script that automatically submits to virustotal is like reinventing a very slow virus scanner.
2 comments

Exactly, hence the preference for a partnership directly to get some more API access priority / infrastructure $ for dedicated scanner worker bots (virustotal is probably a bunch of internal VMs with COM instrumentation agents to WinRM or CLI Linux scanner versions, so more of those for private/dedicated users * ).

* I think virustotal could be easily monetized (without altering or cheapening itself) by freemium to orgs, nonprofits, govts that want faster, private, shared/dedicated access to the same "cloud" capabilities. There was HitmanPro which was good early on, but it didn't seem to be stay anywhere near as comprehensive as virustotal.

Would you rather have a slow virus scanner or a computer that is constantly slowed down by a virus scanner that is not always needed?
Pretty much every virus scanner since the dawn of viruses can be set to only scan on-demand.
Virustotal doesn't run locally, there's zero client impact!