ClamAV is one of the best antiviruses out there. It’s totally free, open source, and most importantly it’s cross-platform software which means you can run it on any platform you want.
Whether you are running windows,linux, mac or any other OS setting up clamav is easy.
Install ClamAV on Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt-get install clamav
Install ClamAv on CentOS
sudo yum install -y epel-release sudo yum install clamav
Install ClamAV on Arch
sudo pacman -S clamav
Update ClamAV database
sudo freshclam
ClamAV will check for updates every two hours by default, to change that you need to edit freshclam.conf file which is located here
/etc/clamav/freshclam.conf
sudo nano /etc/clamav/freshclam.conf
then look for
# Number of database checks per day. # Default: 12 (every two hours) #Checks 24
now simply uncomment "#Checks 24" if you want clamav to check for updates every 24h, and save the file by pressing ctrl+x.
It should look like this
# Number of database checks per day. # Default: 12 (every two hours) Checks 1
If you are an average computer user and not familiar with linux or just lazy to type commands you can install clamtk(graphical user interface) for clamav.
Install ClamTK on CentOS
yum install clamtk
Install ClamTK on Ubuntu
sudo apt-get install clamtk
Install ClamTK on Arch
sudo pacman -S clamtk
To check all files on your computer
clamscan -r /
To scan only a single file
clamscan /the/location/of/file
To scan all files on a folder
clamscan /the/location/of/folder
example: clamscan Desktop/foldername
To scan everything on your system and remove any infected file
clamscan -r --remove=yes /
Be careful with this command as it will delete anything that is recognized as virus when it may not be an infected file but a false positive warning. To avoid this happen, do not remove infected files while scanning, do a scan first, locate the infected file and double check.
clamscan -r -i / &
For more commands run :
clamscan --help
Double click and run ClamTK, click to "scan a file" for scanning a sinlge file, "scan a directory" for scanning a folder, or click to analysis to check the file’s reputation.
That’s it!