Does Ubuntu need anti-virus software? The general answer is no, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use one to run a check every now and then, especially if working with Windows files.
Most folks’ go-to is open source anti-virus ClamAV, an app dedicated to ‘detecting trojans, viruses, malware, and other malicious threats’. ClamAV is available for Windows, macOS, BSD, and Linux systems, making it especially well suited to those who regularly work cross-platform and want some degree of familiarity.
And a rather special new version was released this week.
ClamAV 1.0 is an LTS Release
The first version of ClamAV, which is developed by the US-based tech company Cisco and the open-source community, was released back in 2002. It’s been actively maintained since then, with frequent updates to tackle emerging threats and adapt to emergent new tech.
Now, nearly 20 years after its first release, ClamAV 1.0 is finally available to download.
ClamAV 1.0 is a long-term support (LTS) release that, based on the extensive change-log posted on its blog, features a TON of improvements befitting for a milestone release such as this.
This includes support for decrypting read-only OLE2-based XLS files; an overhauled ‘all-match’ feature whose codebase will be easier to maintain; and a new API calls for “inspecting file content during a scan at each layer of archive extraction” — which sounds like a smart idea.
There’s also checks to limit PDF object extraction recursion; increased limit for memory allocations; reworded warning message when memory allocations limit reached; and faster build time of ClamAV Rust unity tests.
Plus, as mentioned, a whole lot more.
Download ClamAV 1.0 LTS
ClamAV is free, open source software. You can download the very latest release for Windows, macOS, Linux distributions (including as a .deb installer) from the ClamAV downloads page. Alternatively, you may be able to install an older version of ClamAV the repo of your current distro.
You can find source code on GitHub.
Thanks Sadat