ClamXav

About ClamXav

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Back in the days before OS X, the number of Viruses, plural of virus. Note, the term virii doesn't exist and is wrong!viruses which attacked Macintosh users totalled somewhere between Excluding MS Word macro virusesabout 60 and 80. Today, the number of viruses actively attacking OS X users is none. However, this doesn't mean we should get complacent about checking incoming email attachments or web downloads.

Firstly, there's no guarantee that we Mac users will continue to enjoy the status quo, especially as there is now a small handful of trojans for OS X, but more importantly, the majority of the computing world uses machines running MS Windows, for which an enormous quantity of viruses exist, so we must be vigilant in checking the files we pass on to our friends and colleagues etc.

For example, if you're a ...and clearly you are, otherwise you wouldn't be here, would you?!wise person and you've turned off MS Office's macro support then you're not going to notice that virus which is hiding inside this month's edition of Apologies if such a publication exists, however this is a hypothetical situation and any resemblance to any company, publication or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidentalExtreme Ironing.doc which your friend sent you. If you then forward that document to a Insert your own definition of 'less wise'less wise person who has not turned off the macro support, then you have most likely just sent him a shiny new Pandora's Box with a sign saying "Open this end"!

Flippancy aside, I'm sure you get the idea: check the file before opening and/or sending it on to someone else. This gives you the opportunity to avoid the file altogether or at least copy and paste any vital information into a new document and send that instead.

Don't forget, if you run VirtualPC or VirtualBox or use any other means to run MS Windows software on your Mac, you can still become infected within that environment and lose valuable data on your Mac. These programs will run almost any Windows application you tell it to - virus or no virus - it doesn't know the difference. Note that ClamXav can only protect you against malware which you download and check on the Mac, so you may still want to install other antivirus software within your Windows environment.

Why do it?

Way back in 2004, I was looking for a low cost solution for scanning emails, documents and downloads for viruses. The open-source ClamAV project seemed to fit the bill and I used it for a few months, but soon tired of using the command line to operate it, so I took it upon myself to develop a graphical front-end in my own spare time. ClamXav was the result.

Since then, numerous features have been requested and implemented, and ClamXav has gone from strength to strength. When ClamXav turned 5 years old in September 2009, I released an new version, ClamXav 2.0, built from the ground up with an entirely new interface. It remained as beta software for about 18 months before finally being unleashed.

Is it really free?

I hope you like ClamXav and use it a lot and that it helps keep you and your friends/colleagues virus-free. Although I'm providing ClamXav for free, I am increasingly spending more and more time developing it and would really appreciate if you would consider making a donation please. All donations (no matter how small) are gratefully received and would be a huge incentive to help me work on future versions of ClamXav, but more importantly I rely on donations to pay for my bandwidth costs. Please consider it.

Friendly backup reminder

This software has the ability to move files on your computer, therefore it is absolutely vital that you back up any important data before running ClamXav. Whilst it is possible to move files back to wherever they were moved from (see the FAQ), I regret that I can not be expected to offer assistance in this matter.

Comments & Suggestions

If you have any comments, bug reports, or simply need help using ClamXav, please consult the documentation in the first instance. If you're still none the wiser, please try the forums.