AV and Firewall for small office

Started setting up a wireless network for a small office with 6 PC's.
Router is the Netgear WGR614 V6 wireless router and the netgear USB wireless adapters. (please no netgear bashing not my choice) actually so far the netgear stuff is workign well on the 4 machines that are configured including the 98SE machines.
Three of the PC's have Win98SE installed, One W2K w/SP3, and Two XP Pro w/SP2.
The woman in the office can not be pulled away from using AOL so even with Verizon DSL all hooked up and ready to go they want to continue with AOL.
I guess my main question is about an AV that would be low on resources and self updating. As hard as it is to believe only one of the PC's have an active up to date AV installed and working. (yes i will be loosing a few hairs before this is done)
I was considering using Avast or AVG free AV's on the bunch, but im not so sure about either on the older 98SE machines.
Id also like to set up a free firewall and i have concerns about the 98 machines and installing any of the newer versions of Sygate or ZA.
So recommendations on an AV and Firewall that would work well on this mix of machines would be appreciated. Not ruling out paid for AV's and firewalls which may be required due to it being an Office setup. They are a non-profit but some of the free stuff may still have an issue with that.
I was considering NOD32 but it looks like they would need 2 different versions one for ther Win98SE machines and another for the rest.
Anyone know how well the free AOL AV works and if its worth considering.

 

Don't make it yourself difficult. Since you've 6 computers to manage and no central server, just choose an easy to use all-in-one package to offer good protection. My recommendation would be:

BitDefender Client Professional, 6 users, 3 years
Wich will cost you: $307.45 (for 3 years!) and with a renewal price of only $153.73.

This package includes antivirus, firewall and antispam. I would not mess around with serparate programs in an office. Also it's not allowed to use AVG Free and avast! home for commercial usage!

 

Try F-Prot for Windows.

A commercial program but very cheap for your number of computers and runs well on both NT and non-NT systems. Probably the lowest resource/memory footprint of all AV's.

 

@Blackcat
F-Prot is very cheap indeed. Although I think it doesn't fullfill the needs of the man. F-Prot isn't as user friendly as BitDefender, and it's update mechanism is less easy to use. Also it requeres a 3rd party firewall, and maybe antispam. And ofcource antispyware, since F-Prot doesn't detect spywares.

I think, but that's my opinion, BitDefender's suite will give you the best protection with the least hassle, and most easy to use for the (non technical) end users...

 

The original request was for " an AV that would be low on resources". Name me an RTM of an AV that runs with a lower footprint than F-Prot?

Couldn't find a more out of the box AV than F-Prot and the scheduling of updates is far from difficult

But most AV's are not too hot in this respect.

The overall impression I received from reading the post was that a cheap solution was preferable. Therefore with his installed router having a double hardware firewall, SPI and NAT, IMO, F-Prot would still be a good overall choice for this office set-up.

 

@Blackcat
Nothing against you, or F-Prot. But there're some essential features missing on F-Prot to let it serve well in this situation.
You've to consider that most people won't be techical, so it has to offer automatic actions when a virus is found. It also needs an option to password protect settings. And in addition, in office enviroment, I think a quarentine function is very welcome. I might be wrong, but I think are essential things in a small office.

 

StyleWarz,

We both have our opinions and I respect your choice of BitDefender which is a very good package.

All AV's have their weaknesses so let's leave it to other posters to suggest some more alternatives so that LOTL can make a choice

 

Very well said. And don't forget I'm a personal fan of F-Prot too

 

Let me chime in here. Im at the location now and tried bitdefender pro 9.0 plus.
Looks and works well on the one XP machine i installed it to. Went on to the W2K machine with 128MB RAM and it ground to a halt when doing a virus scan, takes a long time to boot, and windows gave me a memory error and said it was adjusting my virtual memery settings.
I dont think im going to attempt to install it on the 98SE machines. Requirements are 64mb min with recommended 128mb for the RAM.
I may have a go with F-Prot and see what happens. Whats the consensus on giving NOD32 a try on the 98se machines?

 

Here is a little read on NOD32 for Win98 - Click here. Most highly recommended!

 

Well I think its not good idea to use 128MB of ram for Win2000. Operating system itself using to much and thats not enought, any AV will effect that PC.

I have several customers who running WinXP with its own firewall and NOD32. Never had any trouble. There is router with firewall as well.

If you want only COMBO package get Panda Platinum 2006 from Ebay for $10 each. It will slowdown system a bit but its better than BitDefender and easy to use.

I am not F-Prot fun as well. I found many times it does not detect trojans that even FREE AV detect. If price is problem than better try VBA32, its also low on resources, detect spywares and have very good detection rate.

 

I'd suggest giving NOD32 a shot...since some of the hardware you have seems a bit underpowered. When Win2K was coming as the installed OS on machines several years ago, my rule of thumb for office PCs was 384 megs minimum. With XP it's 512 now...I will not sell/install any computer with XP without at least 512. Regardless, you have what you have to work with. One of the reasons I chose NOD32 as my main antivirus of choice for my clients, was the low system performance impact. It doesn't matter that you'd need 2x versions (one for 9X, one for NT). You have 6x PCs...you purchase 6x licenses, and down load 2x installers, one for 9X, the other for NT. Your license covers whatever desktop client you have.

NOD32 also is 50% the price for non-profits, FYI.

I would also not use a software firewall, you have NAT in your router to protect the LAN.

Get SP4 on the 2K rigs, all other windows updates.

 

Well i installed Nod32 on one machine and F-prot for Windows on the other 98se machine and both seemed to have relativley little impact on system performance. Both machines have 64mb RAM and K6 400mhz CPU's running 98se.
Scan times on both seemed comparabe. NOD32 may be a step above in terms of features, but the price for 5 users is $170 vs the $50 for F-Prot.
It was suggested in another forum to try an older version of Kerios firewall 2.1.5.
I may try it on one machine and see how easy it is for them to use. As it is with most firewalls with outgoing protection including the one integrated with Bitdefender the uninformed user wont know what to do with the majority of the popups. We will see.

 

You said this place was non-profit? In that case, 170 dollars is not the non-profit rate. Should be in the mid-90's. And factor in renewal rates.