Do you know about virustotal.com? Most often they already have a checksum ID for any executable files that you might encounter, but if not, you can upload and rescan. Virustotal runs the file through a whole bank of the most known/reliable virus detectors, so you can get an overall verdict on whether it's deemed dangerous by a few 'fringe' detectors, or if it gets flagged by more reliable ones like Kaspersky and Eset.
Use a VPN, of course.
Some virus detectors are notoriously bad. I actually bought a version of Norton years ago after reading positive reviews. Bad mistake. It flagged everything, including programs that I had written (compiled with Microsoft dev systems). So I wrote a tiny sample program that did nothing but print 'Hello World.' Norton flagged it as a virus :-) That would be funny if I hadn't paid for Norton.
If the files get flagged by Eset or Kaspersky, then pay attention.