Antivirus to scan files before going onto a Windows machine:clamav?

[jdow]

From: "Gerard Seibert" <gerard at seibercom.net>

> Jim Stapleton wrote:
> 
>> Anyone have experience with ClamAV? Good, Bad, Ugly?
>> 
>> Should I use something else, or is the only good alternative
>> pay/expensive (such as avast)?
>> Am I better at leaving the antivirus stuff to the Windows machine
>> (which has McAfee Enterprise)?
>> 
>> Background:
>> System lags occasionally, and has crashed a few times, and is getting
>> disk errors (both HDs, one IDE, one SATA started this at the same
>> time). I suspect the motherboard, but can't be certain, could be Mem
>> or PSU.
>> 
>> Could also be virus.
>> 
>> So, I want to scan my backed up files while reinstalling Windows on
>> the other machine, before letting them go back home to play.
>> 
>> Thanks
>> -Jim
>>
> Personally, I use ZoneAlarm Suite on my WinXP machines. I have several
> networked together with my FreeBSD machine.
> 
> On several occasions, ZoneAlarm has caught a virus that ClamAV missed
> during mail scanning. I am not sure why though. From what I could gather,
> the ClamAV signatures had not caught up to the new virus. I reload the
> Clamav signatures every 4 hours. The ZoneAlarm signatures are done once
> a day, however.

Different tools have different update cycles, different crews working
on them, and your machine has different automatic updates for the various
AV tools. That's why I like my defense in depth. So far nothing has
triggered the final F-Secure stage. But that's mainly for the web
browsing viruses anyway. The first line of defense is Earthlink's virus
blocker. So far it appears that ClamAV, the second line of defense, has
mostly caught scam rather than virus problems. I suppose the SpamAssassin
I run is another half a level of defense. It's not really an AV tool.
But an awful lot of malware emails look like spam so they trigger the
SpamAssassin stage for many people. I figure it's almost time to get
to the Trend site and run their free online scan to get a solid fourth
opinion about the sanctity of my machine here.

Color me paranoid if you wish; but, they ARE out to get me - but it's
nothing personal. They'll be happy to get you, too.

{^_-}   Joanne