I just stumbled across ClamWin, and I have a question that I couldn't answer in an admittedly brief period of digging.

I know that there is a native Win32 binary available for ClamAV.

I'm trying to figure out what (if any) benefits, besides the GUI front-end, I get from using ClamWin over just using ClamAV directly.

Would anyone be able to point me at a feature comparison, or writeup that addresses this question?

Thanks.

from the top of my head clamwin's native port offers these features extra:
- unloading of processes and modules from memory to deactivate and allow moving them to quarantine
- executable fileteype detection based on file signature to speed up scanning

Try them both and see. I tried Nigel's verson at the ClamAV site a few months ago. It was unstable and I never could get it to run--might have been jus me, but it might have not been. Anyway, I find ClamWin "smoother." In addition, the ClamAV port is a couple of versions behind ClamWin. Finally, the ClamWin guys are easier to work with. I can't say much for Nigel's "bedside manner!"

Regards.

I started my own win32 port when the only alternative was boguslaw's port, I don't liked it.
Nigel's port seams to be a bit immature, mainly because he hasn't many users/testers as us.
My port adds some win32 only features like memory scan and filetype detection

Is there a plan to submit clamwin patches to clamav, or to merge with the win32 port in the long term? I think it should not be easy to manage 3 different tree, porting patches every time a new version is out, and there should also less duplicated effort.

some patches are submitted, some accepted, they have their own win32 port now, and it's different in some
places, they don't like too much to apply a lot of changes, and until now it's no very difficult to merge changes.
Next release may need pthreads win32 dll, if it will based on clamav devel svn

Last time I checked (a couple of months ago, I beleive) The ClamAV Windows port was a couple of releases behind the current one, and ClamWin stays pretty much up-to-date. This doesn't affect the signature databases, of course, but it leads me to believe that on the ClamAV project, the Windows version is not as important as their Linux mail server versions. ClamWin gets 100% of the available time of the team here.

Perhaps Clam should have stayed with the Java version of the Open Source Antivirus Project when they started.

Regards,