Best antivirus for low RAM situation?

Hello all,

I have had very good results using Dr. Web on more than a dozen low horsepower/low RAM systems, especially older laptops. In most cases, the "drag" on the system using Dr. Web on these systems was not perceivable, except when scanning packed/zipped files (which is slow on ALL systems using Dr. Web in my experience).

 

AVG 7.5 seemed to slow down my test system quite alot.
7.0 never did
lodore

 

If you have Windows XP and 128 RAM , no antivirus can be installed or run.
The minimal system requirements for OS are 64/128 MB RAM . The OS itself has occupied all the physical RAM and the computer cannot handle more.I have tried installing one , it either cannot start or if installs , the computer will be more than slow . Additing RAM or changing the OS is the solution

 

Sure it can. I do it all the time. Windows XP will chug a bit w/128MB, but it will run. I run XP on a few PIII 633Mhz boxes at work with SAVCE 10, and it runs a bit slow, but tolerably.

 

It sounds like you're running the AOL Safety & Security Center since a vanilla AOL install has no issues with the XP firewall being enabled or disabled. If the SASC is installed you should remove it immediately; it's a bloated pig.

512MB DDR/DDR2 is only $35 and PC133 is $50. I am not sure why you would downgrade to Windows 2000 since XP is just as efficient, supports IE7, has mainstream support until 2009 and extended thru 2014. Win 2K mainstream support ended in 2005 and extended is thru 2010. Disable XP's performance options > visual effects to make it look like 2K and add a little snap. The thought of putting Win98 on your Aunt's pc shows that you care very little for her.

 

I personally think that last comment was completely unnecessary and disrespectful to the original poster. Unless you personally know the OP and their aunt then you are making an unqualified and inflammatory statement that was uncalled for.

 

Perhaps you could try a very little known AV, BK antivirus:
http://www.bkav.com.vn/frmDownloadE.aspx
It's vietnamese, but there is also an english interface/gui.

Previous versione was very very light!
I have not yet time to try last versione, but if you can wait few days I'll do and say you something more about used resources and effectiveness

 

F-Prot 6 I have heard is very low on resources so do give that one a try.

 

@perman,
a bit of advice if you find someone with a offending arude username in a foreign lanuage again can you please just pm a mod about it and let them sort it out

anyway back to topic
i think more ram is needed really and then a decent antivirus like nod32,kav for paid or avast for free
lodore

 

Hi, folks: Hi, Iodore: Thanks for the advice. I just wish I had taken the route you advised. But I did make my sincere request for Mod to pm me for the translation. I just wish something had been done from the beginning by someone.

 

i think your already causing problems for yourself using xp on 128mb of ram,

but if you have to, you need a very minimal ram usage av, and this has to be AVG in your case.

i have a decent machine, so no AV is above what id use.

in my experiences:

Dr.Web
AVG
Bitdefender
NOD32
kaspersky
Panda (2007 only...)

are all decent enough ram-users, im sure there are more aswell.

good luck, try them out and let us know which performs best on your low-ram machine.

 

Since Avast is already installed, perhaps there's a way to minimize the impact it has on the system? When I installed it, I set it up with the Standard Shield and to download and install updates automatically. What would I have to change to turn it into an on-demand only AV?

The big problem that I see with an on-demand scanner is that she'll never use it unless I constantly remind her to run it. And even then, that doesn't mean she'll do it. So, in this case, an on-demand AV is almost no better than no AV at all. I suppose I could put a shortcut in the Startup folder so the AV at least scans the WINDOWS (or WINNT) folder every time she starts her computer.

Phil

 

Hi, folks: I might have a solution for this situation. Just install Prevx1 (paid )for her, although Prevx1 is not an antivirus per se, its constant monitoring capability plus community-based databank, may somewhat save her from the inevitalbes. Prevx1 will scan her system during booting and examine every move she makes, to check against its database. Remember to use ABC mode, eliminating any possible pup-up alerts, I am sure she hates those. This is not a very solid solution, but something is better than nothing at all. Good luck. BTW, prevx consol uses 16MB while Prevx agent cosumes only 1MB.

 

perman, i dont know how much ram prevx1 is, but when i tried it, i found it slowwwww and system heavy, i definatly wouldnt recommend it to a 128mb xp machine,

something is better than nothing, sure.... but it would be a low ram-high performance AV, and there are a few to choose from.

 

Hi, folks: After posting my previous one, I suddenly remember one case which I helped to solve. My elderly neighbor( early 70's) just bought PC w/256 MB RAM and winxp home. Although still learning keyboarding, he asked me to add something to the box, so that he can do internet surfing only, nothing else. He has no sensitive info or any valuable data stored in the box. Therefore, I did these for him; connected his box to a router, used his window firewall, and installed DeepFreeze home edition for him, and set DF in frozen stage. No more other apps. From there on, he seldomly bother me, except he needs to add few more bookmarks into his browing favorites. Amazing is it?

 

Sarcasm is not one of your strong points is it? I apologize to anyone that was offended. Regardless, family is family and if you want to be the tech on call you should treat them like a paying customer. Resorting to OS downgrades and allowing them to run on a skeleton system seems rather obtuse IMHO.

Hopefully the OP is able to implement some of the suggestions in this thread and keep the Aunt happy. FWIW AntiVir free uses less resources than Avast and has a much better detection rate.

 

I have an old Dell PIII 800 128MB XPPro and as stated in thread previously it runs ok. I use Antivir on and lock it down with a host file and resticted internet priv's at the router, since it is the kids pc and if all it is used for is checking email and surfing the web it is fine. I also found removing flash at the router is also good

 

Just trying to help out as I had a slow PC, this one had XP on it with only 256 ram at one time. Did you have her set up the computer for "Best Performance" ... Does not look the nicest...but it does help.

 

I think that fans of Win2K would probably disagree. The advantage of Win2K (one of them, anyway) is that there is much less bloat that needs to be removed. Nevertheless, I think that WinXP does get the edge because of support ending in 2014, vs. 2010 for Win2K. Thanks for pointing that out.

As for Win98, it all depends on what she's willing to spend. Win98 isn't too bad if one knows how to set it up right (Hint: The default installation method is not it.) And there's also the "security through obscurity" factor (even though I think the fans of Win9x probably overestimate how much benefit their systems gain from that). However, my main reason for reinstalling Win98 would be for the purpose of maintaining compatibility with her computer's hardware, and as a "fallback OS." That's because I would also install Linux to be used as the primary operating system.

Phil

 

It's interesting that you mentioned DeepFreeze since last night I was thinking about using Shadow Surfer as a possible solution. I don't know, though, I think such solutions can have a big frustration potential. I think I would only use Shadow Surfer (or DeepFreeze) if I first set up separate partitions for the OS and data. That way, I think the inconvenience could be kept to a minimum while still maintaining the integrity of the OS.

BTW, another variant of this approach is to use a Linux "live CD."

Phil

 

I am not even considering AntiVir. I've used it in the recent past and it drove me nuts. When updating, it often wanted to download large updates, and the transfer speed was usually very slow. Trying to keep AntiVir up-to-date with a dialup connection was very frustrating, so I uninstalled it.

BTW, Avast isn't much better. It's a bit puzzling, too, because the Avast updates usually aren't very big. After Avast fetches the updates, it seems to do a lot of processing (or something) before finishing the updating process.

Phil