As I waited for an attachment to be available in Gmail, I watched a familiar message: scanning for viruses.
It had never occurred to me to wonder before, but… what does Google use to scan for viruses? Does anyone know? Is it a custom solution? ClamAV? A combination of systems?
And if it is a custom Google product doing the scanning, I wonder how long until we could download Google Anti-Virus? (I’m writing this from a Lenovo Laptop; I’m assuming this would only be useful to Windows users. Probably part of the reason I’ve not thought about it before is that I’m not usually using Windows…)
Then again, perhaps I’m just over-thinking (again) — a quick search reveals that Google already includes the free Norton Security Scan and Spyware Doctor with their Google Pack software bundle. Then again, there is no mention in the Gmail Help Center as to whether the software Google is using in gmail to scan for viruses is equivalent to what you can download with Google Pack. For some reason, I doubt they’re simply running Norton Security Scan on every attachment in Gmail.
I’m not sure it matters, but does anyone know what Google uses to scan for viruses in Gmail?
