Monday, January 24 2005 @ 05:13 PM EST Contributed by: glosser
It's not uncommon for me to learn things while searching for news stories. Today, the NewsForge introduced me to this piece of software I was unaware existed. Clam AV is an open source antivirus solution for ALL platforms.
Protecting against viruses has become an inherent part of using a computer, thanks to the pervasiveness of email, a favorite delivery platform for malicious code. Open source software, in the form of Clam AntiVirus, can help you detect these rogue programs before they hit your inbox, whether you run Linux or Windows.
In fact, you can install ClamAV on a wide range of operating systems, either through pre-compiled binaries or by a source code build. This flexibility gives ClamAV a distinct advantage over competing products in the virus detection arena, which often ignore users with older or non-mainstream operating environments.
How does ClamAV manage to recognize new viruses? With the help of the community that uses ClamAV. If you detect a malicious executable within your network, you may submit your suspicious file to the ClamAV database for the benefit of the whole community, a process which accelerates the response and detection time for newly spreading viruses. Because the users pitch in, ClamAV doesn't have to charge for subscription updates, as most commercial vendors do.
