suggestions for an older comp.

I'm trying to set my mom up with some free AV.(she's on a pension)
Her comp. is a Celeron 1.3 with Win.98. I would also like something that works with Outlook Express.And ofcoarse nothing to finicky.

Thanx in advance.

 

Hi daddymo3.

Take a look over here,

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=56613

for some good suggestions.



snowbound

 

Both of the following are free. Neither is *finicky*...
AntiVir-PE.
AVG.

Support forums...
For AntiVir-PE at HERE and HERE.
For AVG at HERE.

 

Anti Vir is not so good for email so I would reccomend Avast www.avast.com for your situation. Simple non maintenance stuff.

Whatever you do, do not pick AVG.

 

Another fan of Avast Home.

 

I will not recomend avast! HE for a computer with low resources, i.e. old or very old computer...

 

I second that.

avast! can cause noticeable slowdown on old/very old machine or machine with lesser RAM. This has nothing wrong with avast! it is a good AV with lot of useful features as install-and-forget-about-it style. But it shouldn't be problem if your mom can live with it.

AVG Free Edition 7 seems to much more fit to old/very old machine or machine with lesser RAM. It runs very smooth and doesn't cause noticeable slowdown with good real-time protection for today's most dangerous viruses/worms/trojans.

 

AVG is not good imo. Use AntiVir for older machines. It worked very good when i tested it on some old Win9x based machine. Big updates could be the problem though... But if you run NT based OS on slow machine,grab avast. It doesn't have any problems on NT machines.

 

Two reasons that I did not recommend Avast in my earlier post on this thread...

#1- Avast is heavier than either AntiVir-PE or AVG

#2- If you install Avast & then change your mind, Avast does not usually uninstall cleanly. The originator of this thread asked for non-finicky suggestions. Uninstall problems are, to me, a very finicky attribute of Avast -- which is otherwise quite splendid.

However, if Avast is installed while monitored with Total Uninstall then my comment concerning difficulties in uninstalling Avast will be withdrawn. Total Uninstall will get rid of Avast quite nicely. However, it's a good AV so you very well may NOT want to get rid of it.

By the way, when I want to uninstall a program, I always use the Add/Remove first, & then use Total Uninstall second. That always leaves my system clean as a whistle.

As for those who bad-mouth AVG -- I feel that unsupported bad-mouthing, such as Ianb's comment: "Whatever you do, do not pick AVG" are not helpful. AVG gives adequate protection for someone who otherwise practices safe hex. Concerning which, note the test results HERE. For WinXP, AVG {Grisoft} & AntiVir-PE {H+BEDV} scored 100%, whereas Avast {Alwil} did not. This test is not the be-all & end-all, but it clearly shows that AVG is useful.

 

avast! doesn't lefts behind anything except install folder in Program Files which can be simply deleted. Thats all. I'm 150% sure,because i designed Brutal Remove function not long ago for my avast! tweaker (AEC).

Also referring to VB100% score without magazine comments is useless for all products.
Sometimes products fail due to most stupid reason which wouldn't compromise security in real world scenario.

I also don't understand on what sthe problem to test each free AV for one week and after that decide which one to keep. They all uninstall perfectly without any 3rd party applications so there is no problem of testing each one for certain period of time.
I'm testing all AVs from user perspective (not detection score) so i know how each of these work/install.

 

Sorry if I ofended you Bellgamin but AVG is very poor in my opinion. It is consistantly beaten on detection rates by both Anti Vir & Avast, and when it does find a virus it often has trouble removing it.


https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=59008

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=58630

 

That is probably a very accurate statement. BUT! If your surfing habits are very conservative then it is a fine AV to use. If you browse the known sites and just use your e-mail for legit purposes(friends, family, online purchases) then AVG will do a fine job of keeping you protected. If on the other hand you stray off the path to warez and porn sites and download loads of free junk then AVG may not be enough. I just finished trying AVG and thought is wasn't that bad. Easy to configure, very light on system resources and updates fairly regular. My problem is that i'm one of those people that strays(occasionally)off the path, so i'm trialling nod32 because of the extra protection i will gain from it.

These statements people make about tests and how well AV's do in them are valid. But the AV's that are the top performers really are only applicable to the people who tread on dangerous ground, are download junkies or have the money readily available to purchase a top AV. The rest of the skint world population who have no intension of straying to the 'dark side' would be adequately protected by AVG.

muf

 

AVG is not that bad.

When we talk about " good " and " bad " about antivirus, this can be led to endless argument and maybe this has nothing to do with real-world scenario.

In fact at professional test, AVG has continuously certified by ICSA labs and passed the latest VB100% at Virus Bulletin so this means that AVG can detect all ITW viruses/worms 100% at the given time as other antivirus software do. Does it make sense?

So I for one that don't believe ITW malware in the WildList would represent all real-world scenario of malware but certification from ICSA Labs and VB100% can show us that at least AVG is not that bad as some people think.

AVG may not suit to advanced/curious people who want super antivirus software that can detect 99.999% of all malware in the world ever or can unpack all packers in the market.

AVG has low overall detection rate in unconfirmed/unprofessional tests (fortunately, those tests always have nothing to do with real-world protection) but this doesn't mean that it can't offer good/adequate protection in the real-world scenario. In my opinion, detecting all viruses/worms in WildList/Supplemental List and other today's most dangerous malware are good enough for average users, detecting Zoo malware or non-existance malware created for challenge AVs are useless, but unfortunately that some people still don't get this point.

If you do safe hex, if you really know what you're doing, if you don't click/download on everything on screen. I don't see where/why you can get infected, even I don't do safe hex, I visit/download obscure sites but I still safe with AVG Free Edition+other layered defence.

 

I Totally agree Tap..Well said.

I think you forgot about etrust...very good itw detection rating...and 1 year for free. Also quite lighty and very fast scans even faster than nod32.

heres the link:

http://www.my-etrust.com/microsoft/

 

I hardly belive there is anything faster than NOD32... Especially not eTrust...

 

Believe me my friend...they are the fastest guys in town...About 15 minutes to scan my 12 gb data on my pc...but i think etrust gains by milimeters.




p.s. im talking about the one which uses vet engine...give it try and youll see.

 

NOD32 took around 5 minutes to check 100GB of data (max heuristics,potential risk programs,all files,packers,no archives)

 

really? wow...but not in my system...i use to have nod32 and the scans were about 15-18 minutes...same amount of data.

 

Yeah,my machine is very powerful in nearly all areas so thats also a speed factor.

 

But when I scanned only 260 Megs infected archives, it took with NOD and Advanced Heuristics on, almost that 5 min too.

The quickest was eTrust EZ using the Vet engine.

Btw, why everybody are asking for scanning speed? Has the speed something to do with scanning quality? The fastest scanner scans less than the slowest one, so is the best performer that which is unable to scan at all?

Best regards,
Firefighter!

 

hi FF!

my opinion about your question:

If i know that a full scan only takes 15 minutes...i will make quite often full checks of my system, but if it takes about 1 hour and besides with heavy impact in your system...probably the full scan will wait for another day

Its very important that av arent too painful for people....j

 

Well,even avast! checks those 100GB in around 10-15 minutes at most (Standard Sensitivity,no archives).

 

Anyway going back to the subject: i recommend etrust for your old computer. It comes with ZA pro...so a very good deal.

 

NOD32 went from 8 minutes to about forty-five minutes to scan with same scanning options (scan everything). This was from version 1 to version 2 with all the added stuff NOD32 now has. NOD32 is in no way a fast scanner any longer. It used to be but not now. I have a 3GhZ box with XP Pro and 1024 RAM. NOD32 also became painfully slow on my older 98SE box compared to version 1 and even version 2 before all the stuff was added. NOD32 is a fine av but it no longer qualifies as fast and light on resources. I'm not sure any do any longer. F-Prot did but now it is slow too.

But then does it really matter? One need only scan if one thinks a virus is on the computer. I never run regular scans just to run them. That is nonsensical. There needs to a specific reason before you run a scan. If you practice safe hex then you seldom will need to run "scheduled" scans. Maybe once a month just so you feel better and do it when you sleep and then what does it matter how long it takes?

 

http://www.eset.us/compare/#1

Cheers