Hello -
I have been running Clam for about 2-3 years and very pleased. I have also donated to the fund. I notice MS has a new free anti virus program and I'm wondering what to do now - what's best for me - stay with Clam - change to MS - or download MS and continue to use Clam for scanning files occasionally ?

Many thanks for the advise,

SA

Thank you for supporting ClamWin.

MS Security Essentials (MSE) is a very good antivirus at present. It has good signatures, good heuristics, and uses a bit of "cloud" computing so that if it finds a "strange" file that neither its signatures or heuristics indicate is infected, it checks with Microsoft's security center. It is smaller than just about any antivirus. It also has low false positives and is programmed so that it doesn't use more than 50% of CPU. It makes a good primary AV scanner. I would use it with ClamWin as backup. ClamWin will not interfere with it, and no AV is good enough to detect every virus.

My only reservation about MSE is a question of whether Microsoft will keep improving it or if they are satisfied with it the way it is and do only just enough to maintain it in the future. Viruses are continually improving, and a good AV has to also.

Speaking of improvements, Clam version 0.96, which is due out next month, will have some Windows PE file heuristics, which should enable it to detect some unknown viruses. ClamWin should be able to use the heuristics also. The heuristics, combined with the Clam Sentinel real-time front end (now available as a separate project on Source forge) should give ClamWin users adequate protection against file viruses.

Regards,

Thanks for the reply Bob -
I'll download MS and also continue to use Clam. Clam has been great for me - and that's what I hoped you would say - I recommend Clam to anyone who is looking for anti virus protection.
Bob I wish I had some of your weather up here - it just keeps snowing in NY - Many thanks for your help again -
Don't know what I would do without your advise - and the price is right !