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I am currently running Windows XP along with Ubuntu 9.10. Is there any anti-virus which can scan for windows viruses , from ubuntu ? I had tried ClamAV sometime back. It didn't work very well. Is there any other alternative ? Preferably a free one :)

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I assume you are /running/ Ubuntu and have a Windows partition that you sometimes boot from, but want access to from Ubuntu as well? If so, what would be the point of your goal? Since, if you are running Ubuntu and download or open any file containing a Windows virus, then this would have no effect. If you boot into Windows, you can have a virus scanner running there. No? – Rabarberski Dec 14 '09 at 14:05
you can probe panda and mount the windows partition in read-write mode – mmontilla Dec 14 '09 at 14:14
Currently am working on a project which requires me to use Windows for development, and along the way I been infected with a virus. I have been using regularly updated Nod32 AV, but still got infected. I found that the malware is using my PC to spam and also drives up the CPU usage to 100%. I tried using Avast , but to no avail So am loking for a linux based one , which will hopefully detect and clean the malware – Manish Mathai Dec 14 '09 at 17:06
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In that case, I think you should look for a bootable Windows virus scanner (via image you burn to a CD, probably under Ubuntu) . I think going the Linux route for Windows scanning will make it more complex for you... – Rabarberski Dec 15 '09 at 11:36
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I'd agree with Rabarberski there, and recommend Sophos' emergency copy of SAV32CLI (sophos.com/support/disinfection/trojan.html). Free, just download the scanning engine plus latest IDEs, extract all and burn to CD, from which you boot. – Bonus Apr 15 '10 at 8:15

2 Answers

up vote 3 down vote accepted

ClamAV does scan for Windows viruses but you right, it does not work very well compared to Windows alternatives. However I don't know any other free antivirus for Linux, not really interesting project for Open Source community, it seems.

However, major brands in antivirus world do have solutions for Linux. Kaspersky has one, Panda Software also have one, AVG is in the same team. Not sure which one works better though, never tried any of those.

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AVG does provide a linux version which is free of charge (though not free, i.e. open source, software): free.avg.com/us-en/download.prd-alf – intuited Dec 17 '10 at 22:16
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I use AVG's Anti-Virus Free which works well, but scanning the hard drive takes a long time.

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