24 Best Antivirus for Linux Free List

*Note: To enjoy Bitdefender for Linux, you must pay the subscription.

Clam AV

One of the most famous solutions for Linux computers, without a doubt, is this free open source antivirus which is still under active development. In this regard, it stands out as a program with a simple graphical interface that has periodic updates for virus definitions.

Additionally, it offers options for schedule analysis on-demand to quickly examine the computer for malware.

For its part, Clam AV supports the command line interface scanner, offers email scanning and one of its best features, is that it has support for a variety of file types (Like, for example, Office, PDF, ZIP, etc.). It should be noted that this program has been specially designed for Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, BSD, and others.

Clam AV Advantages

• It is a software of Easy installation (portable) and configuration. Therefore, it is estimated as an ideal alternative for more beginner users.
• It works, perfectly fine, as a versatile and long term solution.
• It is defined as an antivirus that not intrusive and precisely this, is what is required when executing such a program on a Linux machine.
• It can detect around 350,000 viruses, worms, and Trojans, as well as programmed viruses.
• Supports platforms 32 and 64 bits.

Clam AV Disadvantages

• It is not a resident virus And this means that it can’t analyze your computer constantly in real-time.
• Clam AV does not have a native GUI, although you can download your own.
• The engine does not have the financial support of a user base with which to employ cybersecurity specialists to look for emerging threats in code samples sent by the user.
• The scheduled scan can only be configured depending on each unit.

Clark

graphic for Clam AV antivirus software. Which, is fully designed to be an antivirus scanner on demand for Linux type system, with the ability to scan individual files or directories.

It is that sense ClamTK consists of a graphical interface that gives you the ease of performing actions without the requirement to open the terminal. Thanks to this, it achieves excellent protection of your system and distinguishes itself as an ideal solution for those users who need a good antivirus but do not wish to use the command line (although it can also be executed from the command line interface ).

Clark Advantages

• It is a very light tool and because of that, it does not consume many system resources.
• It is characterized by being extremely simple to use and handle on Linux systems.
• Its design allows it to function as an antivirus scanner on-demand Very powerful.
• It allows configuring manual or automatic updates for ClamAV virus definitions.
• It is gratuitous.

Clark Disadvantages

• On several occasions, some users of this tool have indicated that their scanning engine may take a significant amount of time to issue the results. That is, this function becomes slow.

ESET NOD32 Antivirus 4

It is an antivirus software developed by the ESET company of Slovak origin and built exclusively for the Linux operating system. However, the product is also available for Windows, Mac OS X, Solaris, Novell, and FreeBSD. It even has versions for mobile devices, email servers, file servers, Gateway servers, and a remote management console.

For its part, this antivirus offers high capacity heuristic analysis With virus detection and other malicious codes. Additionally, for its disk space, we note that the installer occupies a total of 6MB and on disk only 2MB. It should be noted that it provides automatic updates.

ESET NOD32 Antivirus 4 Advantages

• The malware detection rates it shows are exceptionally strong.
• It offers analysis very fast. Said increase in the analysis speed is done by associative search using multilevel cache and low-level programming optimization.
• It has a standard and advanced view.
• The memory consumption it exhibits is truly reduced.
• In the case of an infraction, it guarantees the reconstruction of the most important critical areas of the system.
• It can work remotely, so it allows you to work with multiple servers located in several places.

ESET NOD32 Antivirus 4 Disadvantages

• Unfortunately, the program is locked behind a paywall After the free trial.
• Compared to another antivirus for Linux, ESET NOD32 is considered it lacks more options for its management.
• Sometimes it presents certain problems to detect compressed files.
• It has support for a few file formats (ZIP, RAR, and ACE only).

Sophos

Sophos Advantages

• It emits magnificent protection against malware, worms, and trojans.
• Has small files of updates.
• It offers the option to exclude certain files and directories.
• It is characterized by its simplified and automated administration. The reason why the administrative burden decreases by automating the deployment of protection.
• Your scan engine it is high speed and its integrated technologies
• Intrusion prevention and instant cloud-based protection combine to constantly detect new threats.

Sophos Disadvantages

• His biggest problem is that, in certain cases, he recognized some of your files as malicious software and deleted them.
• Although it has an anti-ransomware function, It is locked behind the paid version.
• It does not come with a built-in GUI.
• For some users, its configuration interface can be very complex.
• It does not exhibit the ability to disinfect executables.

F-PROT Antivirus

It is an antivirus program that is based on a product with great ease of use, complete reliability and remarkable speed, to provide a powerful antivirus solution affordably. That way, it has excellent features that allow you to obtain complete protection against boot sector viruses and trojans especially

On the other hand, it is an alternative completely free that offers analysis on-demand, as well as scheduled scans and, as if that were not enough, it has internal drive and driver support. It is appropriate to note that, this software is also available for Microsoft Windows.

F-PROT Antivirus Advantages

• It is highly recommended because it is considered the program that more virus detects and eliminates with a very reliable heuristic.
• Provides support for both systems 32 as 64 bit.
• Sample low impact around system performance.
• It has a portable installation.
• Issues real-time protection against viruses
• Have a complete directory of threats to scan
• Stays updated to keep up to date with all the new viruses and malicious programs that appear.

F-PROT Antivirus Disadvantages

• Connection and search options They are very small and limited.
• Your user interfaces not at all attractive since it is very disorganized.
• This program is only suitable for computers that have at least 512 RAM.

Comodo Antivirus

It is an excellent alternative for Linux because it offers a real-time protection system and has a powerful engine to configure analysis on-demand and in real-time. Apart from being completely free software, it also stands out as a highly qualified security tool for this operating system, as well as for Microsoft Windows.

It should be noted that, in addition to protecting you from the threats that the Internet saves, it also provides other modules to be security and among the most relevant, we find protection against SPAM and phishing. On the other hand, Comodo Antivirus is compatible with a significant number of distros and hardware and contains email filtering.

Comodo Antivirus Advantages

• Guarantees periodic updates for the definitions of new viruses, if any.
• Support for a wide variety of distros, including Ubuntu, Mint, Red Hat, and Fedora.
• It has support for systems 32 bits and 64 bits. This allows compatibility with previous versions of hardware.
• It stands out for providing the same network security as paid programs, but for free.
• It manages to eliminate threats Instantly.
• It protects the machine from problems that may cause, in the future, malignant intrusions anywhere in the system.

Comodo Antivirus Disadvantages

• Unfortunately, they consume enough resources in the system.
• Some experts estimate that threat detection It is somewhat weaker than the competition.
• For mail scanning, the software it works very slow.
• Its uninstallation becomes very complicated.

Avast Core Security

Due to its remarkable fame in Windows, this renowned antivirus followed this tradition in Linux and today, it is one of the security programs for more employees in such an operating system. It turns out to be a fairly effective tool for powerfully preventing malware and spyware.

For its part, Avast Core Security is a software that provides a test free For a certain time and delivers analysis on-demand, it also ensures great protection in real-time. In addition to this, among other features of interest, we highlight that this antivirus contains scanning programming, network security, can be executed on the command line and has a function of “Core Protection”.

Avast Core Security Advantages

• It has periodic updates to also be able to prevent the newest viruses.
• It can locate malware on dual boot systems with other operating systems.
• It has support for systems 32 and 64 bits.
• It also has support for many distros (Like, for example, Ubuntu, Debian, and Red Hat).
• Toast an optimal heuristic; which is the technique used by antivirus to recognize malicious codes such as viruses, worms, Trojans, etc.

Avast Core Security Disadvantages

• No guarantee rasomware protection.
• It is not responsible for a clean browser or junk files of the computer.
• In some cases, this antivirus does not hide your IP address very well.
• Pitifully, it has pop-ups.

McAfee VirusScan Enterprise for Linux

It refers to a solution that guarantees remarkable antimalware protection always active and in real-time for Linux environments. So, it can also be considered as an optimal alternative to installing on that operating system to protect your integrity and that of your computer. Taking into account that, this antivirus program makes use of an exclusive analyzer that locates potential attacks in the system.

For its part, McAfee stands out for its simple and centralized administration from the McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator console. Additionally, it employs a heuristic analysis that uses behavior-based rules to identify and block new malware variants without downloading signatures.

McAfee VirusScan Enterprise for Linux Advantages

• Compared with another antivirus, the protection level of this program is tall.
• It guarantees a good performance together with all the tools it offers, such as Personal Firewall, Internet Security, Antispyware and many others.
• It has a configuration simple to execute and an interface of fast handling.
• It contains a stored file analysis function, with the ability to detect and block threats effectively. Which protects you against malware more completely.
• Ensures protection in real-time.

McAfee VirusScan Enterprise for Linux Disadvantages

• Reveals high resource consumption.
• About applications, it fails to recognize them at a very high level to know which ones should block and which ones not.
• It does not offer a way to save your preferences As for computer applications.
• On many occasions, the Personal Firewall tool exhibits incompatibility with LAN and proxy servers.

Panda Security

It consists of another of the most recognized solutions to install on Linux computers to have greater protection against the constant viruses that expect to access the system and all your information. Mainly, this tool is based on advanced cybersecurity with technologies suitable for cybercrime prevention.

Thus, a product created and designed by the Spanish company of the same name, which is responsible for providing a solution around computer security.

Similarly, taking into account its most interesting characteristics, we reveal that it has a patented TruPrevent technology that guarantees a set of proactive capabilities aimed at block unknown viruses. It also adds an automatic system of real-time detection, analysis, and classification of malware. This, thanks to its Collective Intelligence model.

Panda Security Advantages

• Show an interface very simple to use.
• This recognized antivirus has advanced heuristics.
• Thanks to It has one of the largest databases, offers the ability to clean a computer that already has a long time infected with any type of virus.
• It is a tool that stays updated to provide excellent equipment security management.
• May download updates 100%. Unlike almost all other antivirus programs that only download a little more than 30%.
• Has technical assistance every day of the year and at all times.

Panda Security Disadvantages

• It is not a free solution at all. As it only offers you a free trial and the estimated time has elapsed, you will have to choose to pay some of its premium plans to continue using the software.
• The free version is very limited in terms of protection, connectivity between devices, account protection and customer service in a personalized way.

chkrootkit

This consists of a mechanism specialized in searching rootkits, as the name implies. Thus, it is appropriate to note that rootkits are a set of software that allows continuous privileged access to a computer to hackers so that they access the system in a hidden way.

In that sense, Chkrootkit is characterized by being an open-source free security tool that normally works from the command line. Additionally, it can be used directly from a Live CD and one of its best features is that it is very light.

chkrootkit Advantages

• Add the backdoor and botnet detection, in addition to the malicious detection of TinyNDS and malware scan Linux.Xor.DDS.
• It can be used directly from a «Rescue Disk».
• It is considered a more advanced tool than the antivirus detailed above for Linux.

chkrootkit Disadvantages

• Mandatory must be executed with superuser permissions.
• It is not an antivirus program as such, but it is a tool that only works on Linux.

Rootkit Hunter

 

As well as the solution mentioned above, this is also a tool designed for Linux to detect low-level threats and even the most complicated to detect and eliminate. In that way, it is also based on the rootkit detection on computers operating under this operating system.

Now, among its most relevant particularities, we find that Rootkit Hunter It is written in Shell Bourne, is compatible with the vast majority of UNIX-based systems and is portable as well. In addition to this, this security tool makes use of the comparison of hash SHA-1 to detect malicious entries.

Rootkit Hunter Advantages

• Apart from rootkits, it also shows the ability to detect worms, exploits, malware hidden in Kernel Linux itself Y rear doors in the system.
• It can be run from the command line interface.
• It is a protection mechanism completely light.
• It is considered as an extremely advanced tool with greater capacity than the usual antivirus.
• Manage to eliminate threats from your computer without compromising its integrity.

Rootkit Hunter Disadvantages

• Are required superuser permissions to run this tool?

What features should a good antivirus for Linux have? Is it worth using?

Now, for you to choose the best solution for your Linux computer in terms of antivirus, you must know what are the most relevant features to consider when proceed to install such software.

Thus, below, we detail the most important features of all:

Heuristic analysis

It is extremely relevant that the antivirus you are going to select for your Linux computer, count with advanced heuristic or heuristic analysis. Since this function is based on a technology designed to detect codes proactively, that is, without the prior requirement of having a specific signature.

Thanks to this, the antivirus program will be able to detect malicious action quickly and will block it instantly. Which means that the team will be much more protected from any threat.

32-bit and 64-bit support

It is also of great interest that the antivirus to choose has support for 32 and 64 bit systems. Thanks to that, this will be a great help for such software does not exhibit incompatibility with previous hardware versions and therefore, in case you have somewhat obsolete equipment, the program will continue to provide optimum performance against the protection against viruses and malware.

You should consume a few system resources

As long as antivirus software consumes fewer system resources, such as battery, memory or energy, it will be a much more qualified option. This characteristic will allow the execution of the program to be much more efficient and at the same time, does not affect the general functioning of the computer.

Constant updates

Focus also on choosing an antivirus that offers the ability to stay updated Or, it can be constantly updated. Because, only in this way, the program will be able to be aware of the new viruses implemented in the computer world and with this, it will develop the necessary tools to prevent those viruses from infecting the Linux system.

But is it really necessary to use antivirus for Linux?

On the other hand, given that few cases are known regarding a Linux-infected computer infected by viruses, surely its users have asked if it is really necessary to install such a program on their computer.

Well, before these doubts, we note that although this operating system has a more robust database than others and is less vulnerable, in the same way, it is very important to have an antivirus solution.

This is basically because, the number of computer threats for Linux users is increasing and therefore, the OS presents a certain degree of vulnerability at the time of being infected by any kind of virus. Taking into account that, there are more and more threats in the computer world.

On the other hand, in addition to shielding yourself against such threats with an optimal antivirus for Linux, we also recommend that you do responsible use of your computer, visit secure websites, download truly reliable files and keep both the system and the applications always updated.