September 29, 2004
Opensource Virus Scanner for OSX
VersionTracker has a interesting program in its newly release software list, ClamXav. ClamXav is GUI interface for an opensource command line virus scanner called ClamAV. To make it easy ClamXav includes a version of ClamAV so you do not need to install the two programs separately. Below is a screenshot of the application, as you can see it is not the most appealing of interfaces but it does what it needs to, scan files. In the current version there is no way to set up automatic scans or scan files downloaded from the Internet (maybe in future versions). ClamAV does allow you to easily download new virus definitions but again this can not be automated.
To install open the disk image that contains a couple of files including the application file and a script to install the scanner utility. First double click on the install file to run the installer. Next drag the application ClamXav application to your application folder, you virus scanner is now installed.
Overall I believe that ClamXav has a lot of potential but requires some work in automating scanning tasks, allowing to save scans so they can be run again at a later time and provide a more "aquafied" user interface.
Links
Mark Allan's ClamXav GUI Interface Site
ClamAV website
