Security for - wait for it .........- Windows 98

I need to do a little bit of online stuff with an old w98 computer. (Actually, all I need to do is find a driver for USB flash drives.) Anyway, I need to be online a little bit. Is there any AV and/or firewall software which will work on 98?

Thanks very much for any advice.

 

I have not seen any apps with WIN98 in the sys requirements in years. I would give it a Viking funeral and upgrade to a new PC.

 

I don't want to do much surfing, I just need to be on long enough to download a driver or two in order to get the thing working well enough to get data off the thing.

 

Go ahead and download it even if there is no AV, it's not like you'll be attacked to death if you go online without AV.

 

If you have a general idea of where you'll need to get the drivers from, just hook the thing up to your hardware router (you do have one, I hope), find what you need and hop off. By the time you get done hunting down outdated apps that were made for Windows 98, you could already be done with the drivers.

 

You didn't say if this was 98 or 98SE. For USB on 98SE, NUSB works very well. If you're using 98 first edition or 98gold as it's called, there's a version of NUSB for it too.
An AV for 98 will be hard to find. That said, very little malware targets 98 any more.
Regarding a firewall, Kerio 2.1.5 is excellent on 98. If you're knowledgeable about the inner working of 98, the free version of System Safety Monitor is the strongest security available for a 9X system. It's the only 98 compatible HIPS in existence.

There's a lot of unofficial upgrades for 98 that have fixed most of its shortcomings. Look through MDGX for more info. Contrary to popular opinion, 98 can be made reasonably secure and quite reliable.

 

Hi, Winsonar AntiExe below is what i used successfully for years on 98, & then XP, & it's FREE The original coder Zancart http://digilander.libero.it/zancart/winsonar.html eventually handed it over to someone else, & now the've gone too ?

The good news is that i managed to locate it

Winsonar 2005 XP Free Edition - build 5.01.03 http://web.archive.org/web/20060424122250/http://digilander.libero.it/zancart/winsonar.html

Click on here

to get this http://web.archive.org/web/20060505...der.libero.it/zancart/winsonar_free_50103.zip

ZoneAlarm Free firewall for 98 is on here http://www.oldversion.com

 

The bad news is that Windows 98 is impossible to secure, because it doesn't make full use of x86 memory protection features. Userspace programs can access other programs' address space.

The good news is that nobody is writing malware for Win98 any more. You're unlikely to encounter anything that can infect it.

Good luck with the browsing though. You may find that Win9x browsers have issues on a lot of websites, even just with HTML.

 

Earlier this month I saw an UNOFFICIAL Windows98 SE Service Pack 3.25 posted on majorgeeks.com. It may have some security fixes and driver updates, but read the describtion for disclaimers first.

edit: Their firewall section also lists a few older programs that are compatible with Windows 98, but who knows anymore. For example, NetVeda Safety.Net 3.80.0001 (freeware firewall for Win98-XP/2003).

 

Reagrding browsers for 98:
With KernelEx installed, 98SE can run SeaMonkey 2.0.14 and Palemoon 3.6.32. Run the Palemoon installer in Win 2K compatibility setting. There are some sites they don't work well on, but for most they're OK. With KEX, the latest versions of flash player can be made to run.

The biggest limitation of 98 is the hardware it comes with. Often it had just 64MB of RAM to work with. Newer operating systems won't run right on that either. The MDGX site has patches that fixed the 137GB drive size limitation, the 2GB file size limitation (now 4GB, the limit of FAT32) and others. The Revolutions Pack upgrade largely fixes the resource handling problems of 98 and upgrades its appearance.

 

I have NUSB.exe on the machine, I click it, it sings and dances and unpacks, but the thing does not seem to install. It is not seen in device manager. I've spent hours on it................

 

Which version of 98 are you using? The versions for 98 gold or first edition and 98SE are different and will not interchange. If you're unsure, look at the dates of core system files in the Windows folder. The date for 98FE files is 5/11/1998. For 98SE, the date is 4/23/1999. Check Add/remove programs to see if it has installed. On mine, it's displayed as "remove unofficial universal USB 2.0 stack".
I assume you rebooted after installing NUSB.
NUSB itself won't be seen in the device manager. You'll only see new items when you plug them in.
If the hardware is old, it's possible that the ports themselves aren't working. Check in the control panel, system applet. Look under device manager tab for universal serial bus controllers. Let me know what you see. It should look similar to this, but probably with fewer entries.

Also check the system information utility,
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\MSINFO\MSINFO32.EXE.
Look under componnents>USB and components>problem devices.

If you see problem on either the device manager or sysinfo, I'll need more info about your hardware, make model, processor, any hardware changes you know of, etc. Also send a link to the exact file you installed.

Are the USB ports built in or on a separate card? A lot of separate USB cards require their own drivers. If this is the case, I probably have them.

 

I'm guessing your historic computer has an IDE drive you can't attach to a modern computer. Try installing Parted Magic linux to a CD and booting from it (if the computer can boot from USB, then you could install PM to a USB stick).

When you have booted with PM, your USB interfaces will prolly work and you don't need Windows drivers for it, so you can transfer your stuff to an USB.
If not, then you can transfer your stuff to an attached SATA drive (if you have SATA connectors), to another computer via LAN, DVD, CD, floppy, or to cloud.

 

I've found that Linux Mint supports a lot of hardware out of the box when you have problems with Windows. You can create a bootable USB-drive with something like LiLi USB creator, or just burn it to a CD. Once you have booted Mint you can connect another USB storage medium to copy the data, or perhaps it even fits on the bootable drive if it's not too much.

 

+1 For Parted Magic.

 

windows 98 and online? are your serious - or just ill?
win98 has such a lot of vulnerabilities you never thought of. even the popular png issue was never fixed. do yourself a favor - uninstall or cut cable.

further - there is NO secure browser for that crap os - all are outdated and have issues themselves. and no security software cant fix that. and i guess that all security software is also out of date. 16 bit

 

SE 4.10.2222 A

 

No need to ever boot it again. Parted Magic will solve your problems 99.96% sure.

 

Most Win98 PCs I've used can run a Puppy linux liveCD or the earlier versions of Knoppix. If the hardware's USB ports are working, either will be able to detect and use them. If all you want to do is get files off of the 98 unit, that would be the easiest way. Just transfer the files to a USB stick. A lot of the hardware that 98 was installed on is USB 1.1, not 2.0. This might be a problem with some USB sticks. If it's USB 1.1, transfer speeds will be very slow and potentially unreliable. Double check the files you transfer. If a Puppy or Knoppix doesn't see the USB ports, the problem is most likely the hardware. In this case, the easiest approach would be to slave the hard drive into another PC.

 

Try this one, (USB Driver if you still need one) had it lying around on my hard drive for some time.
used to work for me back in the day,
http://dfiles.eu/files/gupsle81t

 

OK, that got me to sorting it out. If I was better at this stuff, it would have been quicker, but I haven't mucked with this stuff for some time - not that I knew what I was doing at the best of times.

Thanks to all who contributed , except of course for numbnuts,

 

OnTopic: I dont know of anything that still supports win98, sorry

OffTopic: Thix thread makes me wanna play DOOM

 

Glad it worked for you.

 

btw why rolling the same dice over and over again?
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/sear...starteronly=1&exactname=1&searchuser=razorboy

you never wrote a feedback here
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=314565

In special you should install brain.exe to avoid same issue again
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=289705

you were told.

btw a closed forum may be better for you.

 

Good catch...