Seeking Easy AV for Vista Home Basic user?

Discussion in 'other anti-virus software' started by sandman423, Oct 25, 2008.

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  1. sandman423

    sandman423 Registered Member

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    I am currently working on my aunts laptop which is a Compaq with Windows Vista Home Basic...

    She currently has Norton Internet Security on it which I guess works ok for a novice user like her. I am a Nod32 AV user because of its Heuristics and Low on System Resources which I love.

    Here computer is a tad slow due to the Norton Internet Security so I was seeking an Alternative for her. She mainly just searches internet and does email..very basic.


    So any free recommendations that would keep her safe and not slow down the PC.

    Just seeking some ideas. She has no computer knowledge so I wanted to make it easier for her.

    So any suggestions would be great and please leave why as well..

    I love this site. Thank you all for keeping the safety alive.

    I forgot to mention she has 502MB RAM :( also it is a Celeron M CPU 440@1.86GHz
     
    Last edited: Oct 25, 2008
  2. Dark Shadow

    Dark Shadow Registered Member

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    If she has a license for norton internet security and if its a older version you can upgrade to NIS 2009 enter that license key of the older version and it should work for the remaining time she has left.You may be quit suprised how light it is much lighter then previous version.
     
  3. bigc73542

    bigc73542 Retired Moderator

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    NIS 2009 runs very light and is just about set and forget. It would be a good choice unless you just want a free one.
     
  4. lodore

    lodore Registered Member

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    what version of norton is installed? norton 2009 is pretty light, 2006 was really heavy, 2007 lighter 2008 lighter than 2009 really liight.
    2009 a free upgrade so may be worth trying.
     
  5. sandman423

    sandman423 Registered Member

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    I believe she is using Norton Internet Security 2008...I am doing a full system scan right now so I can't check but I will confirm...

    I am not sure how much time is left...I will confirm as soon as I can.

    Thanks
     
  6. sandman423

    sandman423 Registered Member

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    33 Days Remaining for the Norton Internet Security not sure what version it is...I found it is 2006 I will upgrade to 2009 but do you suggest my Aunt Renew her Subscription or should I add a free AV for her?? If so which one?
     
  7. Dark Shadow

    Dark Shadow Registered Member

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    Oh lord just feel and watch the difference with 2009 from 2006 night and day of a difference and within The 33 days left running the new version I think you will know the answer before that time is up.
     
  8. deanmartin

    deanmartin Registered Member

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    Im not going to say renew or which free one to pick, but i will say NIS 2009 was light on my PC and would be a good choice.
     
  9. Kerodo

    Kerodo Registered Member

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    If you're looking for free, either Avast or Avira would be good. Avast has good overall coverage/features, and is pretty much trouble free.
     
  10. mercurie

    mercurie A Friendly Creature

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    Yes, and with the 33 days, she could use it like a trial period. I would take advantage of this as has been suggested by djohn. :)
     
  11. Arup

    Arup Guest

    I would recommend Avast as it has complete protection, however do set it to update its engine on auto as it might confuse the user. Then I would recommend free Avira as it is the best AV out there period, however the caveat being that it has no antispyware protection so supplementing it with built in Windows Defender on HIPS Spynet mode would be an excellent choice as well.
     
  12. sandman423

    sandman423 Registered Member

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    Well Mainly I will only have this computer for about a week or two because I need to give it back to her...So I will try Upgrading to 2009...what link do I need to download to install Internet Security 2009 for Vista Home Basic without having to loose my License that is valid for the next 32 days?

    It won't install anything the computer is going so slow...I don't know what happened...Well the 512MB of RAM Sucks. To Little. I won't to try to speed this up for her but it is slow as molasses...Just loading the computer takes massive amounts of time.

    Any ideas to speed this up?? Should I get rid of Norton Internet Security all together??
     
    Last edited: Oct 26, 2008
  13. ellison64

    ellison64 Registered Member

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    I would highly recommend upgrading to at least 1gig of ram preferably 2 before i even thought of changing the av.
    ellison
     
  14. emperordarius

    emperordarius Registered Member

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    512MB-->:blink: <--Vista
     
  15. doktornotor

    doktornotor Registered Member

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    Yeah, get more RAM or upgrade to XP SP3. ;) Vista is unusable on anything less than 1GB of RAM, I personally wouldn't recommend running it unless you have 2GB of memory at least.
     
  16. Arup

    Arup Guest

    At 512 XP barely runs, you are better off with 2K.
     
  17. GES/POR

    GES/POR Registered Member

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    Try fprot, cant notice it at all
     
  18. midway40

    midway40 Registered Member

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    Another vote for avast! Yar ye matey! :D

    Last week my boss bought a used Acer 3620 laptop and bought it to work for me to look at. It looks exactly like my 5570z but it has similar specs to your Compaq (Celeron, 512MB RAM). The day before when my boss told me about it he mentioned that it had Vista Basic on it. I thought to myself at the time "Vista on 512MB RAM? Good grief!". My boss has never been on a Vista machine (this laptop is replacing his ancient Sager P2 48MB Win2000 machine) and frankly I was worried that this setup was going to give him a bad impression of Vista.

    But later after I got my hands on the machine I was surprised on how responsive it was. Boot up time was about the same as my 5570z (see specs in sig). I performed a default factory reinstall, applied SP1 and updates, and installed various programs such as CCleaner and avast! I then explained some differences he was going to discover with Vista. The next day he came to work tickled pink saying that the 3620 was way faster than his old Sager and was positive about Vista (he even didn't mind UAC after I explained to him what it's true function was). I remembered that I had two 512MB sticks I took out of the 5570z when I upgraded it to 2GB so I gave him one to add to the existing 512MB RAM. RAM for these notebooks are cheap, you can get a 512MB stick from Crucial for $11 (I got 2GB for $34).

    Ed Bott wrote of a similar experience on his ZDNet blog.
     
    Last edited: Oct 26, 2008
  19. sandman423

    sandman423 Registered Member

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    So you recommend I change to Avast Professional?? What is the difference between the Free Version and Paid for Version of Avast?
     
  20. doktornotor

    doktornotor Registered Member

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    Eh, once again... Getting rid of NIS older than 2009 will make it run less slow... but otherwise, the performance will still suck badly. I wouldn't recommend Avast at all for boxes which have lack of RAM unless you are willing to disable about everything but the realtime scanner. Get Avira Free if you really can't upgrade your HW for whatever reason but getting more RAM or a different OS is the only real solution here.
     
  21. midway40

    midway40 Registered Member

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    avast! Home-Pro comparison

    I believe the Home version will suffice. The only reason I got Pro was that I wanted an AV for my Windows Home Server and saw that Alwil offered a "Family Pack" which consists of one WHS 4.7 Edition and up to ten Pro 4.8 licenses for the clients.
     
  22. TonyW

    TonyW Registered Member

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    XP SP3 with 256MB memory running fine here, but then I have tweaked the system, like disabling unnecessary services at startup.
     
  23. JRViejo

    JRViejo Super Moderator

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    With that RAM spec, you might want to review this article: 12 Unnecessary Vista Features You Can Disable Right Now
     
  24. sandman423

    sandman423 Registered Member

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    So far so good...I appreciate all the help I am getting here...and so is my aunt. She is very happy that I am taking the time to help her out and I am getting all these great comments and responses here..

    I hate when you are just seeking a little help and someone posts flame...Like "First" or lol or who cares.

    So I than you for all the help so far and keep the suggestions coming if you have any. Just trying to get her computer to work better. I Do notice a difference with NIS 2009 it seems to run a little bit faster...Although the crapware is still on the machine from HP...but her loading time is very slow.

    please keep those suggestions coming...I am just trying to setup my aunt for basic computer use and for the AV just want her to be able to use it for what she needs and not be nagged with AV Messages like need to update or any crap. I like the setit and leave it kind of AV's like my Nod32. I have used Kaspersky 6 back in the day which I liked but it slowed down the computer and didn't really fix problems just found them. I am very careful so I use Nod32 for a Basic setup with Comodo Firewall Pro
     
  25. Kerodo

    Kerodo Registered Member

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    If it's an HP, I can tell you that they love to load up on various HP apps and utilities for anything you can think of. Check task manager sometime and see how many HP related processes are running, not to mention how many there are installed on the computer. My mother has one, and there are so many things running relating to HP that I don't even try to figure it out, but I am sure that accounts for a lot of your aunt's sluggishness on her PC.

    Avast is good, it will never bother you. The only time I've seen it be annoying is when it sees an email with a blank subject line, it will then throw up a complaint/query by default, but you can disable this in the options if you explore there a bit. I put it on my mom's computer and it does well.

    Really, all of the usual big 3 freebies do well. Avira is even better at detection, and doesn't bother you, and AVG is a no hassles AV also, but probably less effective than the other 2 (Avast & Avira).

    Recently my mom's PC got so slow and clogged up that I just did a restore of the factory image and now it's snappy and fine again, put Avast on, and no worries. But look out for all the HP processes and add-ons... They'll kill the machine..
     
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