I just downloaded Clam and I am using Norton, but I do not intend to keep it on my computer. I read a few day ago that an open source anti-virus program is recommended with your primary to be sure. I am under the Patriot Act and I have had every trick in the book thrown at me. I do not trust anything American anymore, but I could use any helpful pointers anyone can offer. I just can't lower my guard and I have been forced to really beef up security which is why I am now using an encrypted server and email in the EU. I am told that two anti-virus programs can conflict with one another, but I imagine I can alternate between them?

I thought I would give Clam a try, but any tips to bring a newbie up to speed would be helpful. I thought I would ask before installing in case I will encounter any conflicts that I should know about. In any event, I look forward to trying out the program.

Welcome to ClamWin! ClamWin is an on-demand scanner--It only scans when you tell it to or if you have scheduled a scan. It does not scan in "real time" as files are put on the computer. Because of this, it doesn't usually conflict with other AVs, most of which are real time scanners. The other AV may "kick in" occasionally if it shares a common signature with ClamWin or if you scan a file with ClamWin that the other AV already has a signature for. To minimize this, I exclude ClamWin's signature database directory, its quarantine directory and the *.clamtmp temporary files it creates while scanning from the other AV's real time scanner. This seems to work for me, but if you use these exclusions and still have "kick in" problems, you can turn off the other AV's real time scanner when making a ClamWin scan.

I recommend Microsoft's free, small, real time, and good Security Essentials antivirus/antimalware scanner for individual PCs. I think the large AV programs are a bit too resource hungry (they have gotten better as PC memory/hard drive space have increased), but they are okay in a network/corporate environment where there is more "handholding."

Regards,

Thanks for the tip because I had hoped that would be the case. I have tried the Microsoft scanner, but I am slightly concerned about anything American made only because of the patriot Act. I read somewhere that there may be cases where virus programs are ignoring anything the US Government demands, or at least, it is a concern. The Patriot has made me concerned about everything, but with this scanner I will have redundant capabilities so I may reinstall it again. It seemed to work well. Now that I have heard from you I will install it and see how Clam works.

Thanks again,

Incognito

I think I read this already, but does Clam work with scanning Thunderbird? I noticed it works with Windows, Outlook, and so forth, but thought I would throw it out. I have been slammed with accessing my Windows Live and other issues. My computer was under Blitzkrieg and all my stored pass codes were wiped out and I was forced to request help from the Live Team. I have dropped IE 8 and gone Mozilla and Thunderbird. It has much more going for it in my opinion. My Thunderbird is set up with SSH tunnels. I had to go all SSH instead of VPN. I have already had DHS.gov try to trick it which failed. It was the best money we ever spent. NSA was intercepting all my emails and I was contacted for the most simple things like emails for purchases that my digitally signed emails were tampered with during transit. The US Government is quite a nuisance. Incidentally I should mention they are breaking the law, and I am not. It seems the more I obey the law the more trouble I find myself in, but I think I have learned my lesson never to do it again as it is far too punitive.

I just set the proxy and I am doing a manual scan. I have really enjoyed all the open source software out there. It seems almost stupid not to use it because it often works better than the paid for stuff out there. You know I had not owned a computer since Mac came out in 1984 so I have been forced to really bone up on all of it. It is good there is so much free use software out there since law enforcement attempted false arrest forcing me to quit my job. When I do get employed again, I intend to make some donations because the open source software has really saved my rump. I feel the lack of a good expletive there is doing a disservice to show my appreciation for all of you out there. Despite the fact there are nearly one million words in the English language, there are really some time when only a good expletive will do. Wouldn't you agree?

Sincerely,

Incognito

ClamWin doesn't work explicitly with Thunderbird. I said explicity because you can still scan the email file(s) with ClamWin. There used to be a Thunderbird plug-in called "Thunderbird Glue," I believe but that was several versions ago. It may still be useful if you can find it. ClamWin took a quick stab at supporting Thunderbird, also several versions ago, but nothing came of it. Time and personnel were short.

Look into ClamSentinal, which provides a limited real-time scanning front-end to ClamWin. It's available at https://sourceforge.net/projects/clamsentinel/ on the web. Note that it is not an official Clamwin project, and thus is not supported by ClamWin, although you can get some support from the author.

Regards,