My preferred anti-virus system is ClamAV and I had trouble getting itrunning on macOS recently. Here’s how I got it going so if you’rerunning to the same issue, this should solve your problem.
I will go through the steps I took and problems encountered. Thisarticle will take you less than three minutes to read.
To get ClamAV running on macOS, run: brew install clamav
AVG AntiVirus for Mac offers excellent protection from viruses, web, and email threats. The app doesn't have much to it aside from on-off sliders, and a few minor settings, but for those who just. As much as you might want to believe that your Mac is nigh on invulnerable to viruses, trojans, malware and phishing-based attacks, this simply isn’t the case. ClamXav for Mac, free and safe download. ClamXav latest version: Free virus checker using the ClamAV engine. Clam antivirus free download - Avira Free Antivirus, AVG AntiVirus for Mac, Virus Definitions for Norton AntiVirus 9.0/10.0/11.0 (PowerPC/Intel), and many more programs.
ClamXav is a free antivirus solution based on the Open Source engine, ClamAV. Even though Mac OS X is considered a secure operating system from the viruses that actively attack the system point of view, the users shouldn't enjoy the 'status quo'. The thing is, there are certain situations when a Windows virus can attack a Mac.
Thanks to brew
, open source software like ClamAV can run on multipleplatforms.
Normally, I would just run the application directly, in this case:clamav
, but that does not exist. The main application is: clamscan
Hmm. What is going on here?
After looking up the man page, man clamscan
, one related package isfreshclam
, that has a description:
freshclam - update virus databases
Aah - let’s run freshclam
to update the definition!
Well, there’s no such file, or where do I get it? Is there a sample somewhere?
Well, it turns out I missed a critical line in the brew
install, which was:
To finish installation & run clamav you will need to editthe example conf files at /usr/local/etc/clamav/
🤦♂️ whoops! I didn’t even look (and only when writing up this article,I noticed it).
Let’s make the freshclam.conf
file by running command:
Change the following in the file from:
To:
Running the freshclam
application again results in:
Great! Now macOS can scan virus too!
I can’t take credit for everything, I found this githubcommentthat basically describes the solution I presented.
I have this article as a way for me to remember but also remind myselfof apps that are better on Linux than macOS.
Getting ClamAV running on macOS isn’t that hard, but I was close togiving up!.
I love using open source software and macOS. As macOS is UNIX based,almost all open source software works on macOS.
There are times where just using Linux to run open source software isa better experience than macOS. ClamAV is one of those times.
Hopefully, this post has helped you from giving up on open sourcesoftware!