Someone reviewed v on Jul 5, 2022

Pros: 555

Cons: 555

Bottom Line: 555

mikebratley reviewed v0.95-1 on Mar 11, 2014

excellent

chrispaul reviewed v0.95-1 on Feb 17, 2014

i like it

Music4Ever reviewed v0.97.4 on Mar 28, 2012

Use this in Linux, seems to work OK.

Input Overload reviewed v0.96.5 on Feb 10, 2011

Worth dowloading as a backup check with other bloated Anti-Malware scanners. it's free too!.

Malwarebytes, NIS 2011, Super Anti-Spyware or Hitman found no malware in this application

anomoly reviewed v0.96.5 on Feb 9, 2011

I don't use anything but portable clamwin and it only runs when I tell it to. It must absolutely suck to be someone who actually needs av software always running. I suggest if that is the case to get a better fw.

Strange91 reviewed v0.94.2-1b Beta on Mar 14, 2009

Poor Detection but less resource usage

sn0wflake reviewed v0.94.2-1b Beta on Mar 10, 2009

Couldn't agree more with Fresh Fruit From France.

Kylde reviewed v0.94.2-1 on Jan 6, 2009

wow, NOD32 2.70 claims MULTIPLE infiltrations of this download?

Fresh Fruit From France reviewed v0.93.3-1a on Jul 14, 2008

It's great that it's free, but Avira AntiVir is lonely at the top in AV-land.

odellkevin reviewed v0.93.3-1 on Jul 12, 2008

"ballyhairs & robmanic44"
Uhhhhh......is that suppose to be a review for ClamAV or NOD32? I'm a bit tired of people who write a "review" by saying how much they love another product, that's not a review. If you don't like ClamAV, say so and why, if you love NOD32 so much, go write a review on that page. I think ClamAV is a great, free AV product. I keep the portable version on my thumbdrive and use it to check "strange" computers (ie. hotels, libraries, cafes, etc), before I use them.

ballyhairs reviewed v0.93.3-1 on Jul 11, 2008

@robmanic44
I couldnt say that better, totally agree

robmanic44 reviewed v0.93.3-1 on Jul 11, 2008

I'm a bit tired of people who equate free with good. This isn't in the same league as NOD32. The fact that it's free changes nothing. I've tried just about every AV out there and NOD32 crushes the competition. Smaller footprint, greater frequency of updates, and built-in antispyware.

Krody reviewed v0.93-1 on May 6, 2008

Good antivirus. There is also a version which runs in usb pen drives. So it is useful in order to check a lot of computers. It is slower than other anti-virus software, but is free. A year ago, I used it at the first time on GNU/Linux (this is the guide, I followed, to install it on "penguin" http://www.valent-blog.e...07/04/02/clam-antivirus/ ).
Virus signatures come quickly than other competitors, so it was love from the first byte :)

drog42 reviewed v0.93-1 on Apr 30, 2008

not a bad on demand scanner has a tendency to false positive a tad.example: i have uci chess engines on my pc, and clam av detected one as a threat,avast pro said otherwise,sent the same file to a friend for analysis running nod 32,same result no threat,these 2 av scanners nod and avast pro incorporate multiple level protection, spyware,malware and root kit detection,

seier reviewed v0.93-1 on Apr 22, 2008

Hi Gang,

For starters Betanews is posting the wrong version. This is a copy of the unix version that runs on Cygwin. There is a Windows native version at ClamWin.com. I'm not even going to review this illogical Cygwin version. What I am going to do is tell you why you shouldn't download this at Betanews and get it from ClamWin.com or http://SF.net/projects/clamwin.
*Free for businesses
*Downloads updates and scans on schedule
*Live protection for e-mail (Outlook, not inserted media)
*Was one of the very best scanners at the AV Comparitives

What it isn't:
Autoprotecting execution of programs and insertion of media
A fast/low resource scanner
A commercially available piece of bloatware that conflicts as much as it catches (Trend Micro, Norton, McAfee, Blink, etc..).

Cheers,
Christian Blackburn

Klaus_1250 reviewed v0.93-1 on Apr 22, 2008

ClamAV is NOT a resident scanner. It was NOT designed to be, nor is that its purpose. It was also never intended to be run on Windows based hardware. People who rate/review here should take that in consideration.

ClamAV's purpose is to be a scanner for incoming file's a on *nix platforms. It is not intended to be used for scanning of live environments (can be done, and it may find something, but again, it isn't build for that), especially not Windows environments (again, it is possible to use it this way, but the results will be awfull, and it was specifically not designed to do that.)

So people, please, base your reviews on what ClamAV is and what it is supposed to be. Not what you want or expect (without reading their website apparently) it to be.

darkpepe reviewed v0.93-1 on Apr 22, 2008

It DOES offer resident protection if you install winpooch along.

shicaca reviewed v0.93-1 on Apr 21, 2008

16mb for a program that doesn't even run resident? Are you serious??

I understand people don't want to have non-resident programs "b/c they slow the system down", but if you're computer is connected to the Internet you NEED a resident scanner. If you don't have one, it's like asking for hackers and viruses to infect you anywhere.

It's people like you that make viruses viable and feasible. Get out of the 1990's and get a real virus scanner.

Avast antivirus is FREE for home use, so is AVG. I use Avast b/c it seems to run a bit smoother, but that's my opinion. Get something worth using, people, or you're asking for trouble. Lose your data once to a virus, or worse yet hose your entire PC, and you'll learn the importance of having a nice antivirus that RUNS RESIDENT.

I, personally, don't have any virus codes running amok around my computer, so I can't necessarily test the claims that it "doesn't detect" as well as others, but it wouldn't surprise me one bit.

-Lord- reviewed v0.92.1-1 on Feb 21, 2008

Sometimes has a very poor detection rate, and has no option to run resident. While I agree that some resident programs may hinder the performance of a system, they don't all do that, and sometimes it's necessary. i.e. when going to a webpage, even by accident, sometimes there is malware written into the code of the webpage. With no active scanning your system can get infected or even hijacked. Maybe the software can be written to enable/disable resident services.

ssb reviewed v0.92.1-1 on Feb 21, 2008

The AV with one of the lowest detection rates.
I was using it as part of my FreeBSD server mail filtering but ditched it after it failed detecting most of the infected attachments.
Now I'm using McAfee command-line virusscan for BSD. It works great, using much less cpu and memory resources and has excellent performance and detection rate.

ArKay74 reviewed v0.92.1-1 on Feb 21, 2008

It's the only anti-virus solution I have on my computer. I don't want to use a resident scanner since those always slow down the computer considerably and I have bad experiences with removal of such programs (they integrate themselves completely in the filesystem and TCP/IP stack and the uninstallers are not always able to remove everything which can leave you with a non-working OS).

All I do is to scan ALL of my downloads to make sure that no virus gets installed and I've been virus-free for years.

christoofar reviewed v0.91.2-3 on Sep 26, 2007

Clam AV can also be used incorporated w/ Spyware Terminator, so it will scan for spyware, trojans, malware, & other bugs. It found several I'd had on my system that Avast Free Edition (another good av to have)didn't detect.So thanks goes out to those who maintain open source apps like this!

marians reviewed v0.91.2-3 on Sep 26, 2007

My facts:
I've been using the combo Postfix+MailScanner+SpamAssassin+ClamAV for several years now on a corporate server. Every part of this combo does it's job flawlessly and proves (for anyone willing to accept) that open-source products are not rated because they are cheap but because they provide excelent results, sometimes much better than any commercial products.

I also use it on a customized BartPE DVD, full of other open-source or freeware apps that got me (and my coleagues PC's) out of sh_t a lot of times. So far I couldn't find a better solution to work with.

So that's my experience with ClamAV in a corporate environment, Win32 and Linux alike.

Oh, and if you are not much of a server admin and need an excelent combo for a Windows workstation then, again, I would recommend a freeware+open-source combo: Comodo Personal Firewall Pro+Avast Home Edition+SpamPal+Spybot Search and Destroy

All these, not only ClamAV here, deserve high ratings, not because they are free or open-source but because they are excelent products.

And I repeat, many of them perform much, much better that the commercial rivals.

Galifray reviewed v0.91.2-3 on Sep 25, 2007

I have a question for the reviews claiming that ClamAV does poorly. Where are you getting your information? I googled for AV program test results and comparisons. What I found is that ClamAV scored 2nd overall in detecting in the wild, beating out Norton and McAfee. See http://virus.untangle.com/ for a quick chart.

cricri_pingouin reviewed v0.90.2-4.1 on May 30, 2007

Highly over-rated based on the simple fact that it is open source.
If that was commercial, you can bet all these people would rate it a 1.
I rate it a 2 because of its low detection rate. I can't recommend it to anyone serious about security.

hotwater reviewed v0.90.2-2 on Apr 19, 2007

Just being open source doesn't mean it deserves a high score.

Lack of Real-time scanner, poor detection rate mean it's only marginally useful as a secondary filter on a mail gateway.

cap737 reviewed v0.90.2-2 on Apr 18, 2007

Although ClamAV doesn't provide real-time protection for the computer like other free AV programs out there, it is not that bad for a freeware program. I do like that I can install it portably on my usb drive using Portible Apps Suite, update it and then use it on a computer that may be infected if I cannot download a program such as AVGFree.

Dwarden reviewed v0.90.1-4 on Apr 11, 2007

Carron You wrong there are even worse products :) just ask some AV testers :)

horsecharles reviewed v0.90.1-4 on Apr 11, 2007

Interfaces with Spyware Terminator to enhance features for each/both...a nice package: http://www.spywareterminator.com/app/features.aspx

caronn reviewed v0.90.1-3 on Mar 21, 2007

ClamAV is not an antivirus because it hasn't a real time engine scanner. ClamAV is the worst in viruses detection

Stingray57 reviewed v0.90.1-3 on Mar 14, 2007

I DL this program and played with it. Very simple does what it's supposed to. It's got a few quirks (scanning options), but it works.

Forums say they have efforts for real-time scanning in development, no ETA. I look forward to that.

The auto updates went in like clockwork (very fast), simple, but because it's not real time scanning- I really can't afford to find out I got a virus yesterday or two days ago; I went back to AVG.

I still like their portable solution.

bellgamin reviewed v0.90.1-3 on Mar 13, 2007

To be more instructive, the title of this program should be "ClamAV for Windows."

"ClamWin" is an antivirus program that uses the same database of signatures as does "ClamAV for Windows." The effectiveness of ClamWin was rated as 53% in Feb 2007 by highly respected test organization AV-Comparatives. I expect that "ClamAV for Windows" would have a similar rating of 53% effective. To read that report...
1) Go to av-comparatives.org
2) Click "Comparatives" in left-hand column
3) Scroll down to line labelled "Test of other Anti-Virus products February 2007"
4) On that line, click "Report" in order to view a pdf report of test results.

A somewhat fuller-featured option for those wanting to use the ClamAV signature database is MoonAV. An advantage of MoonAV is that it offers a real-time monitor in addition to on-demand scans.

marty reviewed v0.90-1 on Mar 8, 2007

Why are you fooling with the shell over DOS - Win 95?
VMware I hope. Otherwise your 'puter is also certainly overkill (if not uneless) for a 12 year old OS.

Rageweaver reviewed v0.90-1 on Mar 1, 2007

This prog is integrated into the program Spyware Terminator, the best Anti-spyware and Anti-adware I have ever used, and by itself, this AV is quite amazing. 5/5 easily.

iamanon reviewed v0.88.6-1 on Nov 7, 2006

This detected a keylogger that Symantec did not. Windows Defender also detected it.

norz reviewed v0.88.5-1a on Oct 31, 2006

This version *has* to be installed to c:\clamav-devel, otherwise it won't work (0.88.5-1a).
Check other version: clamwin: http://www.clamwin.com/content/view/18/46/

Ian C. reviewed v0.88.5-1a on Oct 30, 2006

I hope to see this improve a lot. As it stands now, its virus detection database has very poor detection rates.

jerry4dos reviewed v0.88.3-1 on Jul 13, 2006

Won't run on Win95.
["OS Support: Windows (All)"]

Don Juan reviewed v0.88.3-1 on Jul 12, 2006

Great AV program, but not gonna use it much until they have a real time scanner. I'll stick with Avast till then.

anomoly: Avast Home Edition for linux is also available for free.

M^3 reviewed v0.88-1 on Jan 27, 2006

The beginnings of a native win32 port of Clamav can be found at http://sourceforge.net/p...les.php?group_id=125389 as ClamLite and ClamMail. I use ClamMail regularly and have had few problems with it even though it is still not finished.

marians reviewed v0.88-1 on Jan 27, 2006

I still expect a full featured ClamAV for the Windows environment because this would be an absolutely extraordinary move onto the antivir "market". A 5 star must have on a Linux machine, yet just a shadow of it on the Win platform.

Compared to the Linux flavour, this one should be regarded as a "let's-see-if-it-does-anything-usefull" stuff so please, do not judge BetaNews. They made no mistake. They just made an announce. This app exists and it deserves to be rated. But not misjudged.

As an encouragement to the whole Clam project I give this a big 5 out of 5 stars. Just for this. I use the Linux flavour on a company server and it rocks. And one of my wishes is to have a.s.a.p. this tool an a Windows server too :-). My life would be much, much easier and many antivirus vendors will have to think twice before trying to sell bloatware to unaware clients.

Oh, and I can hardly retain a very forbearing smile for the noob who's comment tries to bury a very powerfull program without having any knowledge of it's purpose, features and/or flavours.

But something tells me some people do such "mistakes" on purpose. Don't you think ?

anomoly reviewed v0.87.1-2 on Nov 23, 2005

Is this the only free av soft for linux boxes? I would think a firewall would serve you better.

ecjs reviewed v0.86.2-2 Beta on Aug 30, 2005

Being free doesn't infer being cool.

bellgamin reviewed v0.86.2-2 Beta on Aug 26, 2005

Oh, please! To include ClamAV in a so-called *test* of Windows anti-virus software is an exercise in futility done mainly by... uh, peanut heads ^_^

The only Clam that works with Windows is ClamWin, which is available HERE. ClamWin is NOT ClamAV. ClamWin is nothing more than a partial port of ClamAV & requires Cygwin to work with Windows.

Unlike ClamAV, ClamWin has ONLY an on-demand scanner. ClamWin lacks ClamAV's realtime monitor and heuristics.

ClamAV is NOT a Windows application. REPEAT-- ClamAV is NOT a Windows application. Moreover, ClamAV is designed primarily for use on UNIX-based servers, NOT home computers.

Ergo, for AV-Test to mislabel ClamWin as ClamAV in a test of Windows desktop security software is VERY misleading.

ClamAV is a UNIX-only antivirus, as reported at THIS page of ClamAV's home page. It does not work with Windows.

_/ClamAV is a GPL anti-virus toolkit for UNIX.

_/The main purpose of ClamAV is integration with mail servers (attachment scanning).

Tests done by someone who doesn't correctly identify the software it is testing should be viewed with a grain of salt as to objectivity and professionalism.

pnutts reviewed v0.86.2-2 Beta on Aug 26, 2005

According to the information at http://www.pcmag.com/art...2/0,1895,1850851,00.asp (see text below) ClamAV blows. No thanks. Folks, just because it's free and open source, doesn't mean it doesn't suck.

Security Watch: Big Business Whacked By Windows Worms
Proactive Detection of Malware Based On MS05-039 Vulnerability As Measured By AV-Test

AV-Test is an anti-virus research project at the Institute of Technical and Business Information Systems at the Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg (Germany).

They measured the detection times for six of the malware programs released last week utilizing the MS05-039 Plug and Play vulnerability under 36 different anti-virus products. Eleven of the products were able to detect one or more of the attacks proactively, without any special pattern update to identify it specifically. Here are the numbers for each of the eleven:

Product Score
BitDefender 6 of 6
Fortinet 6 of 6
Nod32 5 of 6
eSafe 3 of 6
F-Prot 3 of 6
Panda 3 of 6
QuickHeal 3 of 6
McAfee 2 of 6
Norman 2 of 6
AntiVir 1 of 6
ClamAV 1 of 6

tmaioli reviewed v0.86.2-2 Beta on Aug 26, 2005

This program is GREAT and about time the OS people gave some real run for the other AV producers (and they should be shaking in thier boots too). This has the real chance to change the whole AV model. Kudo's to the people that work on it.

stenzer reviewed v0.86.2-1 on Jul 26, 2005

Congratulations! I am a new user and it is important for CLAMAV developers and for us users to use CLAMAV as much as possible.
I will do so and I will monitor CLAMAV for Windows some time before making my technical report. Thank you.

kmleow reviewed v0.86.1-1 on Jul 3, 2005

This is the best open source anti-virus.

The only thing missing is realtime on-demand scanning.

anomoly reviewed v0.85.1-6 Beta on Jun 12, 2005

free & it works. is mcaffee?, I doubt it. you cannot compare a payfor av prog with a free one, gui or not. personally all av progs should be free-it's not as if you have a choice to leave yourself unprotected. And since windows is not 'free' & many linux boxes are nothing but o/s, this is great

LordNikon reviewed v0.85.1-4 Beta on Jun 2, 2005

I use ClamWin(uses ClamAV for Engine). The Software is Great for an Open Source AV.

chrisi72 reviewed v0.85.1-4 Beta on Jun 2, 2005

Hello,
a realtime scanner (on access) is very useful since malwarefiles are encrypted. They will be decrypted at runtime.

ArKay74 reviewed v0.85.1-4 Beta on Jun 2, 2005

Actually there is no need for a realtime scanner if every download and eMail gets checked after it arrives on your machine, so scanning only new downloads with this program is not too bad an idea.

I usually have my (paid for) realtime virus scanner turned off since it slows down the machine _considerably_, esp. when you start up windows and it has to scan thousands of files. Or when you access your large download folder and you start to wonder whether Windows Explorer has crashed or what is taking so long.

Tokar reviewed v0.85.1-1 on May 24, 2005

At least this software is CONSTANTLY updated...

They need to figure a way to have this software scan huge files faster.
(They also need a GUI for it as well)...

It takes so long for the software to scan huge files, as evidenced by all the 1GB .tmp files in the Emule temp folder.

[deXter] reviewed v0.85-2 on May 17, 2005

It's about time that we had an OSS A/v.. However, ClamAV is not upto the notch.. yet.

If you want a good, ommand line AV with free daily updates, try McAfee's SuperDAT (!)

Not many people know that the SuperDat update comes with 2 full fledged independent commandline software- scanpm.exe (dos) and scan.exe (win32/console). The detection rate is excellent; there are around 150,000 signatures (and counting), and it scans for practically all types of malware (including adware & spyware), and removes them too. There are excellent scanning and cleaning options that rival (and are even better) than many commercial a/v! Give it a try, you'll like it.

ClamAV, as with most GNU/Linux -> Win32 ported programs need lots of work before they are well accepted in the Windows world..

Tokar reviewed v0.85-2 on May 17, 2005

I am familiar with the Wilder Security Forum discussion. I posted news of the test on a forum and someone linked them forum.
Ive talked with VirusP (Antony Petrakis) on his site's forum about the thread.

The required corrections with the results in the PDF/XLS as noted on the forum were fixed. I asked him about products which used identical scanning engines, and why their numbers differ. He said he just scans and reports what he gets back.

The guy is a virus collector. He hsa a collection of over 216,000 viruses from what I recall him saying on the forum. Hell, the test runs 92,000+.

I suggest you get a free login/password over at VirusP's site (www.virus.gr) and head on over to the forums to see what VirusP has to say. He feels his test is a accurate representation of the virus world...

That Jotti site is nice...id like to see a scan archive though or something like that...with detection rate. Or maybe im missing something, because all I see is the results from the most recently scanned virus file, as well as the all time most submitted viruses.

I dont know...I trust the VirusP test. And 48% vs 99% for Kaspersky is a reason not to switch (I use Kaspersky).

BTW: Im also familiar with the VB100% tests...I dont think very highly of them. Its just a pass/fail test...not very helpful...

bellgamin reviewed v0.85-1 on May 12, 2005

Ref Tokar's post: Please read the lengthy discussion of Virus.gr's tests for Apr 2005 at Wilder's Security Forums. By the way, the Wilder's poster with user-name "VirusP" is the author of the tests reported by virus.gr.

The discussion at Wilder's reveals strong indicators that VirusP's test bed & procedures were flawed in this test. As one indicator, identical clones (such as DrWeb & VirusChaser) scored substantially different, even though they use the identical engines and signatures.

The fact that Clam is in the ~70th percentile among major AV's will become evident if you periodically monitor test results at Jotti. Jotti tests mainly cover new in-the-wild malware. It is a splendid site because it shows comparative results for several leading AV's, & sends its specimens to all the AV's participating in its tests.

I don't recommend using ClamWin as your only AV, because it lacks a real-time-monitor (aka "on-access scanner). However, ClamWin is an excellent AV for doing on-demand/second-layer scans. It updates frequently, & is stringently maintained. It plays nicely with other AV's.

Bruns reviewed v0.84-1 on May 2, 2005

I'll note that everyone who is complaining about no real-time scanner - there isn't meant to be one in this package. ClamAV wasn't designed with that in mind - it was designed for UNIX/Linux servers and plugged into applications that can take advantage of it. My version follows in that tradition, which is why I've focused on making the Win version work as a plugin for various other applications. See the homepage for a list of applications which can integrate with it.

Tokar reviewed v0.84-1 on May 2, 2005

No real time scanners...
www.virus.gr has CLAM-AV as detecting only 48% of all viruses in their most recent test (April 2005)...
And there are at least 5 freeware virus scanners for Windows with real time scanning that performed much better than CLAM-AV according to www.virus.gr...

mengo reviewed v0.83-8h on Mar 26, 2005

great product, thou i miss on-access/real time scanner for the win version
works like a charm and lightweight

duster1024 reviewed v0.83-7c on Mar 14, 2005

Super cool Open Source software. Nothing but good words for it. I am using it on more than 6 servers and I had no problems. It was stopping viruses when Symantec had no idea of their existence.