April is not being a good month for free and open source software. To the problem discovered with ZX Utils and the non-continuity of the HexChat IRC client The news is added that ClamTk will not have new versions.
This was a graphical interface for the ClamAV anti-malware software.It is normally used from the terminal.
ClamTk will not have new versions
According to explained on GitHub its developer:
As of today, after 20 years I consider myself retired. There are many reasons for this decision.
It's not that good (The Show) anyway and it has bad reviews I'm not a real programmer and I'll never be good at this. It needs to be redone, both in a different language and with a new design.
Being hit by a drunk driver in 2022 made my ability to concentrate even worse.
Clamtk is supposed to be a lightweight, easy-to-use program, and it probably isn't even that. It crashes on closing all the time now and I have no idea why ClamAV signatures take a long time to load on startup, I don't know how to tell it to the user waiting for the scan to start. Yes, we can use clamd, I know.
There's more, and I could go on and on about it, but it doesn't add anything significant. My goals were to give something back to Linux, which gave me a lot, and to improve in programming. I probably didn't do either. I became more adept at how packaging works, but I guess that's not relevant. However, I have a couple of recommendations:
Stop calling threats against Linux "viruses." Linux (and other OSes) are vulnerable to MANY threats, including malware and rootkits. Saying that Linux doesn't have viruses is like saying that your football team doesn't hit many home runs (A characteristic of baseball).
It's stupid. Linux systems need to be protected with defense in depth, and that doesn't include saying "it's secure because it's Linux." Malware is the correct term, which covers many types of threats. Someone should make a good malware scanner (GUI) for Linux (and related) systems.
Sorry for adding (ClamTk) to the list of dead open source projects. If I can start doing things again, I will. But probably not. Thank you to all the wonderful people I've spoken to from all corners of the world, and take care
ClamTk and ClamAv
Luckily, this decision does not mean that Linux users are unprotected. Only we will have to deal with the terminal to configure the protection. Fortunately, Behind ClamAV, the best-known antivirus for Linux and present in the repositories of most distributions, is the company Cisco and a team of developers who receive a salary for their work.
As I defined it in an article I wrote for Linux Addicts, ClamTk was an interface that only provided us with a list of functions grouped by category and represented by an icon. I remember that my impression at that time was that it was very unintuitive and required some time to understand how it worked.
I have written a couple of articles analyzing the need or not to install antimalware on Linux. I think what happened with XZ Utils settled the discussion. And, if something good comes out of this news, it will probably be that many users find out about the existence of this free tool (ClamAV) which, among other features, includes:
- Frequent updating of the threat database with support for script use.
- Email analysis.
- It can scan most of the file formats including RAR, ZIP, Tar, Dmg, Tar, BZIP2, OLE2, Cabinet, CHM, Gzip, BinHex, SIS, and others
- Includes built-in support for ELF executables and portable files packaged with UPX, FSG, Petite, NsPack, wwpack32, MEW, Upack, and also for those that are obfuscated with SUE, Y0da Cryptor, among others.
- Some of the most commonly used document formats can be analyzed, such as MS Office and MacOffice files, HTML, Flash, RTF and PDF.