Anti Virus on old(ish) PC

[canderson90]

Ok so my decent computer died a while back so I dug out all my old parts and got my 633mhz 256mb ram pc going with windows me / xp dual boot (xp only so I can use the internet because I have one of those silly USB internet dongles that wont go on anything below XP )

It works pretty well tbh It keeps me going at least. However Iv just spent the best part of the evening re-installing XP and loading my files and drivers (thank god for full mirror backups eh! xD) I thought I would risk NOT having an anti virus program running and I got some random Vista security pop up thing constantly bugging me and It wouldnt let me install any anti virus so I thought right ok format and start again!

Now Im thinking get anti virus but Iv tried AVG and Avira (the 2 I know are ok and the main part FREE!) but they slow the system down considerably

Anyone got any sugestions on what anti virus would work on this machine without slowing it to a crawl?

Also anti spyware etc software recomendations would be good

Thanks guys

 

[Marc]

Nod32
But not free

 

[StrontiumDog]

Try Avast! anti-virus - another freebie

http://www.avast.com/en-gb/free-antivirus-download

 

[Mraccess]

NOD 32 is great, assembly based and fast. Hospital at the edge of the disk.

 

[Amigarobbo]

Amazing as this sounds, the Microsoft Windows Anti-virus is very light on system resources, and seems to detect everything I throw at it.

 

[Tajmaster]

Yup I can also say that the MS software is not too bad. I think it will be hard to find an efficient anti virus that doesnt drastically slow down a 600Mhz PC though, such a shame when we sit here with 50Mhz monsters! LOL!

If you dont mind me asking, do you not have anything faster laying around?

 

[Station240]

Just don't even consider Norton, 5 years ago it would really slow down a 3ghz P4 with 1 gig of ram. Imagine what its like now !

I was given a big pile of cables and other PC stuff the other day, in there is a Celeron 600mhz. I had to laugh at that.

 

[canderson90]

I agree there! Norton can go suck my big fat hairy toe! lol I hate it with a passion!

Unfortunately I have nothing faster (well maybe my Xbox360, heard about people putting windows CE on them :s I wonder if its a power pc in disguise?.... Nah its microsoft LOL )

I dont really NEED anything faster, I only use the pc for internet browsing and some really old win 95/98 games so cant see the point in shelling out money for a computer fast enough to run newer operating systems and anti virus etc.

I have some RAM and Processors etc from faster machines but no idea if any of it works and I really cant be bothered digging it all out as I think the processors have a few bent pins etc and dust in them (was ment to take them to the tip...... yeah that happened LOL!)

When This machine dies I think I'll get a second hand laptop I like to be able to sit in bed chatting away, Shame I managed to send my old one on a flying lesson down the stairs. Note to self... Walking down the stairs and typing does NOT work lol xD

 

[Geraldine]

Try Avast! anti-virus - another freebie

http://www.avast.com/en-gb/free-antivirus-download

Yep, that's what I use, never had any problems with it, you have to re-new the free licence every year though, apart from that, I have never noticed much of a drain on system resources.

 

[Powerpie5000]

Stay away from all those over advertised, over priced commercial products full of bloatware... Norton and McAfee i'm looking at you!

There are some decent freebie's such as Avira antivirus, Avast and AVG... Not as good as paid one's but still quite effective

 

[canderson90]

I used AVG for years! Loved it! Then the free AVG went became difficult to find on their site for a while, so I switched to AVIRA which I also loved (Luke Filewalker xD xD LOL it still makes me have giggle fits lol.... I really do need to go get myself a life LOL)

Not tried AVAST as of yet.... Maybe on a faster computer if its like AVG and AVIRA as even those slow this computer down just that little bit too much (Shame they want me to update the PROGRAM files to a newer version to use them because I would be quite happy using old versions)

I dont think I would BUY anti virus tbh. If I found one that was really good and it had a thing where you donate some money to the fund if you like it then I might.

Im using a trail version of NOD32 2.5 that updates fine etc Its quite mighty for something so simple I think I like it :s Not enough to pay £XX for it tho... lol

 

[tokyoracer]

Id try an older version of AVG, however I dont know if they are updateable without re-installing a new interface.

I do miss old AVG though...

 

[canderson90]

I thought of that but alas it wont update It wants me to download the latest program files

 

[Tajmaster]

Another thing that helps reduce the risk of a virus is running without admin rights. What I do is setup my account with admin rights first, install everything I want to (updates etc) then remove the admin rights. On 7 and Vista, anything that requires admin rights will pop up and asking you to put in the credentials, on XP it may just bomb out until u right click on the icon and click "Run As.." and put in the admin credentials. Well behaved programs dont have a problem running without admin rights, so you should be OK if you are just using it to browse the web.

Also try a light weight browser such as Opera or (spit) Google Chrome

 

[cosmicfrog]

Nod32 lets u try it for 30 days

and MS security essentials is fairly good at what it dose

those are the only 2 I use or recomend

 

[Justin]

Nod32 all day long, really lightwieght but very, very good

 

[Merlin]

NOD32 is my weapon of choice, along with an occasional visit to Trend Micro Housecall, an online scanner that doesn't use any resources. I always go to Housecall once I have set up a new machine to prove it's clean before I hand it over to the user.

 

[rkauer]

Sorry, but old AVG was a strainer! When I switched from it to Avast the new program found FOUR VIRUS in memory.

OK, it is not so good in detecting spywares, so you have to set a spyware detector, too. But all free antivirus are not so good on spies, AFAIK.

 

[woodycool]

I'd recommend AVG.
You can get older versions from http://www.oldapps.com (direct link to AVG downloads)
There's still virus definition updates for some older versions (for AVG 8.5 onwards iirc)
Make sure you decline the program updates, otherwise you'll get the bloated AVG 2011 interface.

Another recommendation is Microsoft Security Essentials ..... it's actually rather quick (not sure about the 'quality' of the protections though)

I've never liked Avast! ... it always seems so bloated and the interface doesn't seem to make much sense to me. Maybe this has improved in newer versions, but I'm happy with other tools.
At the moment, I'm using Microsoft Security Essentials, mostly because AVG clashes with Autopatcher and prevents the downloads from working (Autopatcher downloads the Windows/Office updates for offline use) but I may consider Avast! or Anti-Vir if MSE proves to be a bit shitty.

 

[cosmicfrog]

never forget your virus checker is only as good as its last update