Best antivirus for low RAM situation?

My aunt has a computer that is barely able to run WinXP. Her computer came with Win98, and only has 128 MB of RAM. Some fool, who think's he's a computer technician, upgraded her computer to WinXP without adding more RAM (he probably didn't even check to see how much RAM was in the computer).

Anyway, I installed Avast and Kerio PF 2.1.5 on her computer because they are supposed to be light on resources. Well, her computer can't even handle them. The combination of memory being swapped to disk and Avast's constant scanning slows her computer down too much.

What would you folks recommend? I was thinking along the lines of a free on-demand AV scanner. And it's important that updating be easy, too, otherwise it won't get done.

Please do not answer me by saying "Add more RAM." It's not an option at this time. I am helping my aunt by long distance, so adding more RAM will have to wait.

Phil

 

AVG free if you want to keep it light and free...

Paid I would suggest her trialling NOD32 and seeing if that speeds it up.

 

Hi, folks: Well, since you do'nt like the hardware solution to your aunt's problem. I would suggest to solve RAM issue by means of applicable software before scouting any suitable AV. Why not try out this app;
O&O CleverCache Professional v.6.1. It requires a system w/ 64 MB RAM only.
Good luck.

 

Nod32 will the best

 

AVG for a freebie, F-Prot or NOD32 for paid.

 

Whichever AV you pick, WinXP with 128MB of RAM is never going to run even close to smoothly (neither will Win2k). You should seriously consider buying her some more RAM.

 

KIS 6
very light and great protection.

Once installed you don't have to do anything anymore

 

What make and model computer or mobo does she have?

 

Most probably there is simply is not enough RAM to run anything worthwhile on XP.

Still if you had to try AVG free is your best bet.

 

Do you only want low RAM or a good protection?

You can run no protection which is pretty fast but protection do make your pc slow down a bit

 

AVG uses less than 2mb of ram according to my task manager, you won't find a lighter AV than that. Combine it with the xp firewall, turn off a few unnecessary services and features and it should be tolerable.

 

sure avg or bitdefender for ram usage,

but dr.web should also be considered here, if everything is 'old and outdated, it takes 10mb to download, 10mb HD space, little ram and updates are less than 15kb each.

 

But long term, if you are not going to increase the RAM, revert her computer back to Win 98.

 

yep i have to agree,

ram is cheap these days, get a 1gb strip.

 

I think the best option is AOL antivirusshield : light (slimmed down even), free and good ! http://www.activevirusshield.com/antivirus/freeav/index.adp?

or http://www.download.com/AOL-Active-Virus-Shield/3000-2239_4-10568703.html

or .... buy some more RAM

 

1GB may not be an option. I worked on a old Win 98 PC a couple months ago that had a max capacity of 256 MB.

 

maybe, but even my 500 mhz p2 machine could handle 2gb of ram.

i think it differs,

even my new machine now only takes 2gb of ram, when some can take 4 ' 6 ' 8.

of course they should check first if their M.B can take a 1gb, and if it can, id suggest that.

 

I agree, put as much as you can, based on max system capacity and what you can afford. I was just pointing out that it may not be an option.

 

I would suggest either not installing a FW and have XP FW running, or I would install Look N Stop Lite. I would install F-PROT, and enable only the On-Access scanner. Or install NOD32 and enable AMON and IMON.

Next time you go over there, I would pull out as much unnecessary start-up items as you can, either in Startup, or in the registry.

 

You should try AVG Free indeed.

KIS 6.0, you must be joking.

 

I don't like/hate it.

Anyway back to topic, I choose AVG Free or DrWeb for low ram situation.

 

Thanks for all your replies. I appreciate all of your suggestions.

I am inclined to try AVG. Unfortunately, it is a rather huge download for such a light AV program. That is the main reason that I initially ruled it out as an option. I didn't realize that it runs so light, which is nice. However, the large size of the installer is a bit of a drawback. Fortunately, it's not a "show stopper."

I agree about using the Windows firewall. Unfortunately, she is using AOL, and the AOL software would not allow me to enable the Windows firewall. That's why I installed Kerio 2.1.5. If I can persuade her to drop AOL, I will have her uninstall Kerio and then activate the Windows firewall. Or I might install something like Ghostwall or the SoftPerfect firewall.

Eventually, I would like to upgrade her computer to 256 MB or 512 MB. I am also going to remove Windows XP and replace it with Windows 2000 Professional. Or I might just put back the Windows 98 SE that she originally had on there. But that will all have to wait until the next time I visit her.

Phil

 

NOD32, definitely. The majority of the systems I get are low memory systems, generally 128MB-256MB and ussually on low speed Celerons that under most security settings would run horribly, especially with Windows XP but with NOD32 I can't detect a single slowdown.

 

i can, boot up.....

its fast but not as fast as avg or dr.web for bootup, those are 2 avs i have licences for so i notice the slowdown difference, anyone else probably would not notice this, or notice as much.

if its machine is soooo low on ram, avg would be best for his machine.

 

I haven't used AVG in a few months, but I remembered it being more noticable in my experiences. Will definitely give it a shot on the next system I get though. F-Prot/Dr.Web are definitely light on resources, but again, I've had better experiences overall using NOD32 for cleanup.