Virus Protection With avast! Linux Home Edition On Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon

Version 1.0
Author: Falko Timme

This tutorial shows how you can install and use avast! Linux Home Edition on an Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon desktop. Although there aren't many Linux viruses out there, this can be useful if you often exchange files with Windows users - it can help you to not pass on any Windows viruses (that don't do any harm to Linux systems) to Windows users. avast! Linux Home Edition is free for private and non-commercial use.

This document comes without warranty of any kind! I do not issue any guarantee that this will work for you!

 

1 Installing avast! Linux Home Edition

Open a browser and go to http://avast.com/eng/download-avast-for-linux-edition.html. Download the avast! Linux Home Edition (DEB package):

In the Firefox download dialogue, select Open with gdebi-gtk (default):

avast! Linux Home Edition is being downloaded:

After the download has finished, the Package Installer starts. Click on the Install Package button:

Type in your password:

avast! is now being installed:

After the installation has finished, click on Close and leave the Package Installer:

To use avast!, you need a (free) license key. Go to http://avast.com/eng/home-registration.php and fill out the form to have one sent to your email address:

 

2 Apply The License Key

Check your emails, you should find an email with your free license key for avast!. Now let's start avast! for the first time. Open a terminal (Applications > Accessories > Terminal):

Type in

avast

to start the command line version of avast!. As this is your first run, you are being asked for the license key:

Type it in and press ENTER. avast! will then perform a virus scan on your home directory:

 

3 Creating A Launcher For avast!

Of course, we don't want to open a terminal each time we want to run avast!. Therefore we create a launcher for it. Right-click on Applications and select Edit Menus:

Go to System Tools and click on the New Item button:

In the Launcher Properties window, type in a name for the application (e.g. Avast Antivirus) and avastgui as the command, then click on Close:

You can now find the new launcher in the Items window. Click on Close to leave the menu editor:

 

4 Using The avast! GUI

We can now use our new launcher to start the avast! GUI. Go to Applications > System Tools > Avast Antivirus:

This is how the avast! GUI looks like. To start a virus scan, click on Start scan:

To update the internal database of known viruses, click on the Update database button:

The latest virus signatures are now being downloaded:

In the Tools menu, you can access some detailed information about avast! and also modify your Preferences, e.g....

... configure avast! to download the latest virus signatures automatically:

 

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13 Comment(s)

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By:
Reply  

This is really great and helpful to people like me who are new to linux. I have successfully installed Avast antivirus software on my Ubuntu 7.10.

To, the administrator

"Buddy, you can issue the same with the name for Ubuntu 7.10, because i have tried it" 

By:
Reply  

You can check av-comparitives, avast detection rate is not what it used to be. Avira is killing avast and is available for free download, no registration. 

By: Anonymous
Reply  

and the avira linux offering is.....?

By: Anonymous
Reply  

Avira free anti-virus for linux...

http://www.free-av.com/en/download/download_servers.php

By: flywelder
Reply  

and how do i instruct Avast to repair an infected file or quarentine a virus?

12-01-09 

By: Jhourlad G. Estrella
Reply  

Thanks to the developers and owners of Avast for releasing their hard-work to the world for free. So again it is basically FREE of charge, update is unrestricted, it basically scans executables as well as archives.

Pretty cool, huh? But what about real-time monitoring where files are scanned on the fly?

--------------------

Hiboohi Blogs

By: loserbig
Reply  

All of the antivirus programs for Linux I have found (Antivir, AVG, nod32) seem to need dazuko in order to provide real-time on-access virus protection.

Dazuko is a "stackable file system" and is a nightmare to install, if I understand right it allows the antivirus real-time access to the files being read/written. If you want to try to install it, I'd recommend trying first on a Linux installation that you don't care about (because you could mess it up, mine is limping).

By: chaithanya kumar.j
Reply  

thank you for your valuable guidance to install avast antivirus.

By: Anonymous
Reply  

In the Launcher Properties window, type in a name for the application (e.g. Avast Antivirus) and avastgui as the command, then click on Close:

"avastqui"  please command no.........."?..... avast ......"?...... all ok "avast"

little englich sorry

By: sro gold
Reply  

thanks very much. i search the information for a long time. good luck for you.

By: Anonymous
Reply  

Thanks alot worked perfectly new user to ubuntu

By: Sadegh
Reply  

thanks a lot...

By: Kent Åsberg
Reply  

This is One of the most (maybe the most) excellent application operation guides I,ve ever been confronted with since I started working in the field of computer and information systems development in 1967 :)

Thank You

Kent Åsberg