Antivirus for Ubuntu

A lot of people, who use Linux operating system ask, if they need an antivirus for their system. I agree up on the fact, that Linux computer operating system is so engineered, that makes it hard for computer viruses to enter into the system. However, there are a few reasons, why you would want to have it installed on your system. You will need an antivirus to scan the Windows drive on your personal computer, if you have one. It will be required to scan any Windows-based network, attached server or hard drive. It may be needed to scan Windows machine over a network. It is a good practice to ensure, that the files we send over to other people is virus free. Which means you will need an antivirus software to scan the files, that you are about to send. Same is the case with your emails as well. In case you are running Windows programs on Linux, using Wine, then you will need an antivirus. To make sure your system is not infected with virus. For the various reasons mentioned above, you will need to install an antivirus for Ubuntu on your system. Let's see which of the antivirus can you use.

Best Antivirus for Ubuntu

There are various paid, as well as free, antivirus for Ubuntu 9.04 and other versions of Ubuntu. They are:

AVG Anti-Virus
AVG Free is a free version of AVG antivirus, that is free to download anti-spyware and antivirus software for private and non-commercial use. It is efficient in detecting viruses, however, the drawback of this antivirus is, it is not able to remove the viruses from the files. You may want to go for the paid version of the antivirus and protect your system.

Avast! Linux Home Edition
Avast! antivirus is offered as a free download for Ubuntu personal and non-commercial users. It is one of the top 5 best free antivirus software. The kernel for the Linux antivirus is the same as the antivirus kernel for Windows platform. The updates come about twice or thrice a week, but the frequency increases, when there is malware breakout times. The user interface of this antivirus is not easy. All the drives, along with the selected files and folders can be scanned with it. Certain infected items can be quarantined and also be sent to the Avast! team for further analysis.

ClamAV
This is another antivirus for Ubuntu 9.10 and the other versions of Ubuntu. This antivirus is directed at scanning emails on mail gateways, but not for performing scans on drives and/or networks. Since, it was released under GNU/GPL V.2, there is virtually no restriction for its use. It is able to scan a number of file formats, such as compressed files, Microsoft CAB files, CHM files, HTML, PDF, RTF, Microsoft Office macro viruses, Trojan horses, worms and also mobile viruses. It is able to support almost all the email formats, hence is an ideal tool to be installed in the mail gateways.

F-Prot Antivirus
Although F-Prot is oriented towards UNIX and Linux servers, it can also be used for personal computers. It can be downloaded for both personal Linux computers and workstations. It integrates to the existing Sendmail, Postfix and Qmail installations and can scan incoming emails and also scan hard disks. It can scan removable drives and it also has the ability to scan compressed files and includes an, on access scanner as well as a filesystem monitor.

It is evident with the antivirus for Ubuntu, that it safeguards your machine against malicious content, since you are going to keep interacting with Windows. At the same time, there are chances, that your machine may get infected, when you use the Internet, as viruses they are aplenty.