Limited with resources, which software??

Hi,

After reading this great forum for a couple of months, I tried to rebuilding a defense for my little notebook. I am using Fujitsu Lifebook P2040 as my main PC and I carried both on work and home.

My P2040 Spec is: Crusoe 800Mhz, 60 Gig HD, and 240 Meg Memory (Some was taken by Video Card).

I bought NOD32 couple days ago as starting point. Now my system have:
1. Antivirus: NOD32
2. Firewall: ZoneAlarm Free
3. SpywareGuard (maybe I will take this down for better SW replacement).

The problem is I read too much on this forum and feel that I need more layer for my defense. I do a lot of searching on the internet. So which next software should I acquired

I am thinking to buy AT Software. TDS3 seem to heavy on memory side. I am not sure with BoClean since I could not try it out. How about PG?? I need to reserve my memory as much as I could.

Any suggestion

Thanks a lot.

 

HI

It all depends on what kind of sites your visit and the work you do on your laptop. If you are consistently going to questionable sites, I would look into upgrading your defenses.

If all you do is basic web surfing, having a good AV (NOD=great choice) and the firewall will stop quite a lot of junk from hitting you system.

As an added defense, it wouldnt hurt you at all to install SpywareBlaster to guard your system, Spybot S&D to immunize (optional tea timer to guard registry) and Ad-Aware as an On-Demand scanner. None of these will take up any additional memory until you use them, but will greatly add in protecting your system.

As stated, it all depends on your surfing habits, but you have a very good start

 

I am not sure how Ewido compares in the use of resources or costs. I believe it is available as a trial. I use it and like it.
Here is a review.
http://www.anti-trojan-software-reviews.com/review-ewido.htm

Here is the review of other AT.
http://www.anti-trojan-software-reviews.com/index.htm

I tried A sq for awhile but it didn't seem to get along as well on my computers.

Others here can give you better advice, especially in regard to resources required.

Best.

Jerry

 

Hi Dgho. I'm running nod32 with boclean. They run great together.Boclean is very light on system resources. I don't even notice it running. I'm running 700 mhz processor, and only 192 mb of ram. Boclean doesn't offer a trial, but they give you a 30 day money back guarantee if your not satisfied with it.

I can't comment on ewido. I've never used it.

 

BOCLEAN....for sure!

 

Whether you need an AT or not dependss on you and your surfing habits as well as your comfort level just depending on NOD and ZA for your AT defense. Lately NOD has beefed up their trojan detection both via signatures as well as the hueristic module. I recently added BOClean to run alongside NOD and I really can't tell a difference as far as performance goes and this is on a PII 450 with 512MB RAM.

 

dgho - If you use SpywareBlaster, you really don't need the"Immunize" feature found in SBS&D.

Furthermore, if resources are an issue, TeaTimer uses resources constantly when it's active in SYSTRAY (see screenshot). HTH Pete

 

EWIDOSS with the EwidoGuard running resident doesn't really look like a good choice here, IMO. Pete

 

Many thanks for your suggestions.

I do use: SpywareBlaster, S&D, A2, and Ad-Aware as my scanner on demand software.

The problem is the one that stay on memory. I try to minimize the memory usage so I need to find the combo that work a long well, do a good job on trojan and rootkits, but still using minimal memory and CPU resources.

BoClean seems the best option.

Based on Spy1 picture, Ewido does consume memory to much.

So, if I have to choose only one between BoClean, TDS3, and ProcessGuard, which one that will give me the more coverage with less memory and cpu resources

Thanks in advance.

 

I would go with Process Guard from these options.

Thanks,

Chris

 

I agree...that is why I put it as "Optional"

I didn't list more than I did because I only wanted to provide him with info about free programs. I don't know anything about Ewido or ProcessGuard. I would like to though

 

Seems a reasonable spec but before trying to choose any more security programs, I would make more RAM my first purchase, particularly if you are running XP.

You are then less restricted in your choice of potential software.

 

Yes, I would like too ... but my P2040 already too old to get new RAM. I am planning to purchase the new P7010 but still have to save more.

I'm using Windows 2000 and have no plan to upgade to XP with P2040.

 

Is the RAM maxed out on your machine? I am surprised you cannot find more RAM modules on Crucial; http://www.crucial.com/

In fact just checked your laptop on Crucial; very unusual in that it does not hold any memory for this model!!!!! and have found out that your model is indeed maxed out on 256 MB RAM.

You may therefore need to supplement the anti-trojan capabilities of NOD. An excellent, commercial lightweight AT Guard to run in Real Time would be BOClean. While an excellent, free on-demand AT scanner would be Ewido.

 

Trojan Hunter runs VERY light on ones system if using the realtime guard

 

From my own personal experience, TDS is a resource hog with real time protection, and Ewido(Paid version) is the same on my system, which has 512Mb ram on a P-III Tualatin server processor. I use Ewido free as on demand only and am happy with it. I can't speak for the other AT's out there.