AVG, the privately owned Czech company formerly known as Grisoft that specializes in providing security software solutions, has released an updated and improved version of their anti-malware solution for Linux-powered systems. The software in question is called AVG 8.5 for Linux and comes with streamlined scanning capabilities, new antivirus filtering, and improved performance and ease of use.

The simple truth of the matter is that Windows malware can and will impact Linux systems. Take the case of Linux servers for example; Windows-powered machines are connected to them, and as we all know, there are plenty of security threats for Windows out there. What AVG 8.5 for Linux brings to the table is adequate protection for the server and for the workstation that runs on Linux.

Here is a list of features you can expect to get from AVG 8.5, server and desktop edition:
- Streamlined scanning engine that is capable of detecting and removing viruses, worms, Trojans, keyloggers, spyware, and any other form of malicious software, and does it all in a single pass.
- Heuristic emulation for detecting new and unknown malware.
- Enhanced system resource handling though shared memory usage.
- Support for 64-bit and multi-CPU architecture; support for multi-core CPUs.
- Fully modular solution meaning that the number of restarts has been reduced considerably.
- New avflt antivirus filter.
- New RedirFS-based on-access scanner.

AVG Technologies CTO, Karel Obluk, comments on RedirFS: “We are particularly proud of the RedirFS element in AVG 8.5 for Linux. The original intention was to discover possible ways of implementing an on-access scanner for the Linux kernel as an alternative to the Dazuko project. Since that time, the RedirFS project has evolved to the general framework of Linux 2.6. We have released the RedirFS as open source. This will enable much broader functionality than on-access scanning.”

If you would like to get AVG 8.5 for Linux, a download location is available here (free desktop version).