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Scanning a QR code is quick and easy, but scammers often use them to disguise malicious URLs. Fortunately, this amazing app will warn you if you scan something bad, making it an excellent first line of defense—and it’s completely free.
How Trend Micro QR Scanner Differs From Other Apps
The app I use is Trend Micro QR Scanner. It’s a very simple QR code scanner that requires no additional subscription or purchase of a product, although Trend Micro does have an excellent free online virus scanner that I would recommend.
Its main forte is that it can analyze QR code URLs before you click on them to see if they go somewhere bad. That way, you can get a heads-up not to click a link and avoid scams before you can even see them.
How to Use the Trend Micro QR Scanner
First, grab the Trend Micro QR Scanner app from Google Play or the Trend Micro Mobile Security app from the Apple Store. If you’re on an Android device, you can access the QR code scanner simply by opening the app; for iOS, you’ll need to open the Mobile Security app, then tap the QR code scanner icon in the top-right.
Now, scan a QR code. For the sake of this article, I demonstrated Trend Micro QR Scanner’s abilities by scanning three URLS:
- The URL for MakeUseOf.
- The URL of a scam website I logged months before writing this article.
- The URL of a scam website logged on the day of writing this article.
The app then informed me if the website was safe to visit or not.
Trend Micro QR Scanner marked MakeUsOf as safe. This is because we’re a reputable site with no history of peddling malware, so it gave me the go-ahead to visit it.
The app told me it was dangerous to visit the malicious website spotted months ago. Trend Micro had plenty of time to identify and log the website as malicious, so anyone scanning this QR code would be properly informed of its bad nature.
However, when I scanned the QR code for the malicious website spotted while writing, the app told me it was unverified. Trend Micro hadn’t logged the website yet, so it couldn’t tell if it was safe. If I encountered this message in the wild, I would take the proper steps to identify if the QR code was fake before clicking the link and entering my personal data.
The Trend Micro QR Scanner app takes a lot of guesswork out of identifying a bad QR code, but it’s not perfect. You do have to consider the QR code you’re scanning and the website you’re attempting to visit. Always apply common sense when scanning a code, even if the app says it’s fine. And if in doubt, err on the side of caution.
