I am going to build a webcrawler in the java programming language or perhaps c++ and have it write to a database, the question is, since it is going to be looking at other websites, can it give me a virus? i know if i go to some sites i can download malware, spyware, or virus, btu can a web crawler do this? i want to make a crawler but i dont want it to be going to sites with malware or viruss on it and giving my computer a virus, anyone know if this is possible?
You are going to write an application in C++ or Java and you are seriously asking this question? First off, as you SHOULD already know, a programming application can't get a virus. The only way the system that executes your code can get a virus is if YOUR application downloads the file locally then executes it. If your crawler/scraper downloads and saves files just avoid downloading non ASCII files to avoid a potentially harmful file from being saved to your system. Even if it is saved doesn't mean it will self execute, obviously.
Stole the words out of my mouth. I suppose that it is better to be safe than sorry, but I'm actually fairly surprised that people still think it's possible to get a virus by looking at a webpage. At least we got rid of the exploding computer viruses.
These two idiots above me have no idea what they're talking about. If it's your crawler that's going to the webpage instead of you, the virus can actually multiply ten to fifteen times faster than normal viruses and completely overheat and melt your motherboard. I advise that you quit internet.