Hi,

I have a general question to ClamWin and ClamAV.

Are there any tests to see how good ClamWin is?
There a lot of tests with other known products but I cannot find any for ClamWin or ClamAV.
So, are there any resources?

Thanks

Thanks for asking. There are no recent tests for either Clam AV or ClamWin, as far as I know. ClamWin uses the scan engine and signature database from Clam AV. Clam AV is really designed for Linux email servers. It does a pretty good job of identifying Linux malware, but does not do as well at identifying Windows malware. Clam AV prepares about 1,000 malware signatures each day from a feed from Virus Total. These signatures are likely signatures for high profile malware. There are around 450,000 total potential new malware items released each day. So ClamWin and Clam AV do a poor job of identifying total potential malware. That is bad, but not quite as bad as it seems. The 450,000 consists of total malware released, but the average personal computer user will only be in danger of encountering much, much less that that because lots of malware is not designed for and distributed to individual personal computers. Users can further limit the amount of potential malware by being smart users.

Long story short, in my opinion, Clam AV/ClamWin can identify perhaps 50%-60% of the malware to which an individual personal computer user is likely to be exposed. This is just my guess, for what it's worth, based on working around malware since 2009, including 5 years of signature preparation with Clam AV. I'm sure lots of people will disagree with me.

The ClamWin developers have always encouraged users to use ClamWin as a backup scanner to a real-time Windows antivirus, like Microsoft Windows Defender. Most of the AVs used on Virus Total will do a good job of protecting Windows computers.

Regards,

Thanks for your quick answer, GuitarBob

Ah okay, so the detection rate is for Linux systems better?

As far as I understood, ClamAV/ClamWin can detect malware for all OS (Linux, Android, Win, etc.), right?

Clam AV occasionally gets samples of Android malware along with the regular malware for Windows and Linux. In 5 years of sigmaking at Clam AV, I must have prepared 10 or less Android signatures. There is not very much malware developed for Linux compared to Windows, so Clam AV is much better at detecting Linux malware than Windows malware. The amount of Linux malware is increasing though, and it is no longer a completely safe OS, especially if used in a business or organization.

Regards,

Thanks a lot, GuitarBob
It was very helpful.

Thanks for using ClamWin! It had lots of potential at one time, but development on it is just about stopped, unless a talented programmer wants to donate improvement time/effort to it, often a thankless task.

Regards,