Good protection with low resource usage?

I'm looking for some good programs to protect my pc (running windows xp sp3) as best as possible. My computer only has a 2.8 Pentium 4 and 512mb of memory so my security setup needs to be very low on resource + bandwidth usage.

I currently have Avira Premium security suite for a 3month promo trial. I deactivated the firewall since I feel it is unnecessary for my uses and I'm worried it will slow my comp and network too much. Would this defend well alone against most forms of malware considering I don't use the firewall? I also have an old wrt54g router that provides some security for my network as well, but I'm sure there are some other methods to beef it up a little bit. I want a catch all solution (as close as possible) for all forms of malware (trojans, viruses, rootkits, spyware, etc) and protection from any potential attackers.

What I'm looking for:

Ease of use
High detection rates
Low on resources
Real time protection
Good toolkit of manual scanners
Some type of HIPS (if it doesn't slow anything down)
Network control/protection/scanning programs?

I would prefer a free or cheap solution, but I'm willing to shell out some cash if there are some excellent programs you recommend. I'm considering malwarebytes' anti-malware, a-squared anti-malware, and superantispyware. I've been hearing a lot about Dr. Web and BOClean on here too... Thanks in advance. You guys have helped me out a lot in the past, so I thank you for that as well.

 

try drivesentry@ http://www.drivesentry.com/

 

Fastest allround solution is A2 Malware, has got an HIPS, A2 + Ikarus engines (on par or higher detection rates than Avira) + surfprotection

Next best is ThreatFire free (has also outbound protection), does not scan on execution, but on intrusion (using second tier AV engine of I think Virus Buster)

A strong and free combo could be SUrun (to run as LUA, with exceptions for certain programs), Spyberus and AVIRA free/Avast free or AVG free (choose the one which feels fastest)

 

To best offer assistance it would be good to determine your "risk profile".
[Analogy: Bad drivers need a lot of auto insurance, but even good drivers need some insurance.]
Are you cautious, "security aware"? (Being a member here, I assume you are.)
Are you insistent on keeping your OS, applications patched / updated?
Do you have kids (constantly DL'ing cute wallpapers, screensavers, etal?
Do you P2P?
Do you surf on the "dark side"?
Reason asking is that I feel a lot of members lean towards overkill with security app.s. Perhaps a paranoid mindest is most secure, but....

Cheers

 

I keep my stuff updated and I'm pretty aware about suspicious behavior. I get a lot of archives and data sent to me, so I use avira to scan them but I'd rather have an automated (and more secure) process. I think I'm more concerned now about privacy (isp logs and such), data and settings backups/protection, and things like running into an unknown keylogging website or something like that (I have a pretty good eye though). How is Mamutu in regards to protection and resource usage? Would it be pointless to run a2 and Mamutu at the same time? I'm not sure how it works really.

 

I used Mamutu for about a month and it seemed like a nice product if you aren't looking for something very demanding pop-up wise. If you don't care about answering a lot of pop-ups I recommend CIS with FireWall and Defense+ (you can uncheck the A/V part during installation if you want to stick with Avira). If you set Defense+ and the FireWall to learning mode and do some of you're regular tasks for a but, you can then up the security bars to whatever level you feel comfortable with. Paranoid(Defense+) and Custom Policy(Network Defense) being a lot of pop-ups.

 

Defensewall would complement your PC security with low resource footprint.

 

I heartily agree with Kees. A-squared gives superb protection across a very broad spectrum of threats and exploits.

 

Thanks for all the recommendations. I'm pretty well covered right now except I'm still stuck at what to use for real-time protection. I've narrowed it down to either SuperAntiSpyware, Malwarebytes, Avira, or Vipre. Possibly running alongside of Mamutu. Any conflictions there?

I have a decent amount of tools including the KZTechSuite (which is excellent), Autoruns, Runscanner, Spyware Blaster, ID-Blaster, BOClean, Hijackthis, Sandboxie, and wwdc. I use erunt, but I don't have any drive imaging software. Thinking about getting something like True Image, but it's a little pricey.. I have OperaTor for anonymous browsing, but it hasn't been working well for me (really slow or nothing at all). Mostly working on privacy (encryption, proxies, etc), hardening windows, and improving network speed+security.

 

If one your hard drive/s is either Seagate or Maxtor, you can get DiscWizard or Maxblast for free. There basically a stripped version of True Image. http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/

Also, prices on RAM are coming down. I'm in the US and just last week I bought 2 X 1GB of Crucial DDR PC3200 memory that will be $15 after rebate. That's an insane deal considering I paid over $30 for a single 512MB stick last year.

 

You could use Paragon Drive Backup Express.

 

Yep Maxxblast is good. For freebies I use Reflect for image backup http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.asp and Syncback SE for data backup http://www.2brightsparks.com/downloads.html#freeware

 

I second Syncback Free (SE is payware), excellent and d*mn fast!
And ERUNT for your registry backups.

 

If you want an all in one sercurity suite that's fast and will cover you against a wide range of threats then paid products like Kaspersky Internet sercurity 2009 or Norton Internet sercurity 2009 are highly recommended.

There are some good free products available, but you'll find yourself adding many layers of difference software vendors that can not only be Resource hungry on your PC, but may also conflict with each other. Comodo Internet sercurity is the only all in one sercurity free suite I know of, but the Malware detection is supposedly very poor. Until Comodo have a viable anti-malware solution it's not a good choice for sercurity.

I remember reading an article about running Multiple Security applications and it's not always necessarily better. According to what I read, having multiple applications may actually create more vulnerability's to be exploited. I don't have a link to an article, but I remember reading this sometime ago.