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Ask Slashdot: Light-Footprint Antivirus For Windows XP?
New submitter Bauermlb writes "I service computers for retired folks in my community, often older machines with modest speed (2 GHz Centron) and modest memory (512 MB). Adding AVAST to one of these machines slows it to a crawl. Any recommendations for a light-duty antivirus program with a low overhead? (These people do not tend to surf 'dirty' sites.)"
http://www.clamwin.com/content/view/18/46/
That's what they tell you, eh?
Liberty in your lifetime
Ad networks/common popular websites have been compromised repeatedly in the past and will be compromised repeatedly in the future. All sites could be considered "dirty sites".
There is no such thing as a safe website. These days any site can wind up hosting malware via banner ads that inject code.
AVG is relatively lightweight but I would suggest you test it and others on some of your target hardware.
I've seen way better performance with it than with McAfee, Avast, etc.
Detection benchmarks typically put it on par with the other free solutions, though it changes from month to month.
Do they *really* need Windows? Or would a lightweight distro with a windows-like interface do the job? Just asking :)
Seems a reasonable bet... http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/software/379933/avira-free-antivirus-13
MSE was OK when I last tried it, but it made a footprint on a 1.8ghz single core proc machine. Of course anything will make a footprint on a low-enough-end machine. Previously I had used AVG which was also OK but the networking features tended to break Source engine games even if they were off (you had to deselect them entirely at AVG install time). Anyways not sure if the LATEST version of MSE supports XP still or not. You might be able to grab an older version that still does though.
Microsoft Security Essentials It's pretty heavy to install on a limited machine, but once you get it going you don't notice the performance hit and it's as good as any out there. Before MSE came along I recommended F-Prot. It is a subscription, but nothing I found could touch it on an old slow machine for low overhead AND effectiveness.
I've been using it for the last 3 years on XP and now 7, very lightweight. No virus or adware problem (for now). From time to time I also scan my computer with adaware and spybot.
Try it! Library of Babel
Not that I'm promoting it as effective virus protection, but MSE has a light effect on my Windows partition. Seldom using Windows, but I surf on it ocassionally. Don't know if MS will continue to support it after XP dies, but looking at my parents computer and the 4 websites they visit, I really wonder how robust an anti-virus program someone who is elderly actually needs. Good experiment for somebody: use XP with NO virus protection for a month, visit the same websites these people visit, use a modern web browser (not IE 8), and see at the end of that period if you are actually infected.
Microsoft Security Essentials - http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security-essentials-download - is free, quite light and actually good enough.
It's not so much a memory issue as it is the nature of the beast. Active scanning hogs hard disk performance. I would ask these people if they might want to get a Chromebook or similar. The aging hardware might soon go to PC heaven so they will need to replace the system anyway.
"Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair" - George Washington
Microsoft is killing updates for XP in a little under 9 months. Get them onto linux or a new PC or it may not matter how good of an antivirus you put on there after that.
Personally I'd rather have my idiots at home glued to the TV than out doing idiotic things
Yes, I know... it failed certification. But often what is used in certification is proof-of-concept or old and very rare samples that may not be "in the wild". It deliberately doesn't detect them to have a lighter footprint and be easier on resources. I use it on 1 GHz machines with 512MB of RAM with no noticeable slowdown. It doesn't miss the stuff that you're actually going to be at risk of getting infected with, in my experience.
You didn't state the OS you were asking about, but IIRC Avast is Windows-only. MSE may fit your requirements.
-- Insert witty one-liner here. --
Sempron, Celeron?
And if you have only 512 MB of RAM, you don't have an older machine-- you have an OLD machine!
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Considering how old WinXP is and considering how well researched its many holes are, you would be better off with almost any other modern alternative.
Securing/protecting WinXP will give you nothing but grief, pain, frustration and a bill.
You will do more for retired folk if you get them on a modern OS than if you try to run some free AV solution on a half baked OS.
If these are many elderly/retired people they can pool together you might want to contact you local software provider for a bulk license. Or better yet, just install Ubuntu.
If it has to be Windows - Win 7 works well on older hardware. Change is also healthy for the mind and will help them when they have to use other hardware that is becoming increasingly computerized.
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
A "2 GHz Centron" huh? They glued a sempron to a celeron? Someone dumb enough to write that certainly is dumb enough to overestimate the impact Avast has on a system. And 512 MB of memory? That's not enough to run anything.
How about naming your celeron correctly, adding 512MB of DDR1 for about $4, and dropping in a socket 478 Pentium 2.8Ghz for about $9. That costs less than an antivirus license. Then keep Avast, since it's the best speed vs detection.
In my experience it is so much easier to avoid the whole problem of Windows malware, simply by installing Linux. I tell my friends that I don't do Windows. They then assume I use a Mac - I use a Mac too, so that isn't wrong. When I tell them that I can install something on their computer that will make it work almost exactly the same as a Mac, then they actually get interested and once they have Linux with XFCE running, they never look back.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
John McAfee himself strongly recomends it, says it's like having a Bangkok prostitute do your taxes while you fuck your accountant:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/21/quotw_ending_june_21/
"I want an elephant the size of a mouse, please"
Antivirus software sniffs the butt of ever filesystem write operation, as well as sniffing the but of every executable image load, as well as every browser plugin load; it also scans the contents of inbound network data, since it could have a known payload using an unknown zero day in the program requesting the data from the Internet.
Most of the code could be made significantly less overhead, but we are talking reducing it from elephant sized to water buffalo sized, rather than reducing it to mouse size. For example, if instead of checking the whole file when every write occurs, it could prevent the file being opened again until a scan-on-close occurred. Both Outlook and IE would hate that, and any browser that didn't operate "stage then interpret" would still have to be byte-stream interposed. As another example, it could decide to not react to every FS event; MacOS has this capability, since it integrates a mandator access controls (MAC) capability, but many OSs do not. And even on MacOS, most AV vendors don't take advantage of this, since it messes with their ability to use the same event streaming model as on their other platforms.
So: no such animal exists, if you want it to also be effective.
Seriously. It's amazing. I'm using it on a PIII 1.0 ghz 512 PC133 box that I use as a server. It impressed me so much that I switched from AVG (which was slowing down my Core i5 box) and now don't even notice a scan.
I cannot recommend Bitdefender enough.
Windows has detected an undetectable error.
I think he is getting confused and meant to type Centrino which was, at sometime a marketing/branding term for an Intel Reference Design consisting of Chipset, CPU and Wifi. Either way, they wrote it wrong, but lurkers from the past would have recognized it. It was posted on a lot of laptop stickers in the same way Pentium 4, Core X, etc are.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centrino
As for /. letting this through... things have changed, have you been gone for the past 3 years?
1gb memory stick for that computer is $12 on amazon. XP on 1.5 gb will run avast or mse just fine.
I would also like to vouch for AVG being lightweight. I run it on all my machines, including a 7-year-old XP box.
"Once we've identified and embraced our sickness, we'll have strength...and that's when we get dangerous." - John Waters
Maybe and just for some people, a lightweight Linux distribution might work.
I moved grandmother from Outlook/Word on a 486 to Gmail and Docs on a 2ghz athlon and she adapted fine. She is 92.
...is worth a pound of cure. Install Firefox, AdblockPlus, maybe even NoScript if you wanna be hardcore, and 99% of malware is blocked in its tracks. Block the ability to download executable files and you'll be very close to 100%. No grandpa, you don't really need to install videoplayer.exe to see that porn clip.
I've not had any performance problems with MSE. Seems to do the job, is quiet about it and is free. I've moved the various family members I provide tech support for to it. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security-essentials-download
At one time, long ago, it was most often the sites themselves which were hacked, hijacked and made to serve up malware. But lately, the methods have become more sophisicated. Ad servers are more often targeted and those servers are accessed by requests delivered by a wide range of sites out there. The thing about his is that the original site which might be blamed for the malware, would be uncompromised. The ad servers seem to take a lot longer to detect such compromise.
If someone is interested in setting up a secure station for email and web, I would recommend a nice Linux distro. This is not for the reasons believed -- that Linux is invulnerable. It's not. But when a site sends a "setup.exe" the user is less likely to unwittingly run the code successfully.
I think it will still work under XP. After the initial scan it should be pretty light on local resources.
I completely disagree with you. I have used MSE on ALL my familys machines since it came out and I have yet to have it fail and yet to notice ANY slowing of my system other anti-virus programs caused. Any it is approved by my work VPN AV check. I am completely satisfied with it.
None. Just don't use Outlook and IE. And teach the users not to click on anything they don't know. Works much better than antivirus programs which are viruses in themselves. They make your computer feverish and sluggish...
-- Cheers!
www.cloudantivirus.com
Light, no annoying popups, messages or sounds, i only remember he is there when i manually scan a file.
MSE is similar.
Install Linux
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
ditch it for Linux. So much of what we do on PCs now is through a browser, they won't really be able to tell a difference. Ubuntu is extremely easy to learn and does not need a powerhouse to run. Installation is a breeze and updates are as easy as on Windows.
The thing is, modern antivirus will not be satisfactory on single-core (single-thread) CPU, especially not Celerons, which are so low on on-die cache. First-generation Turion 2.0GHz is somehow still tolerable (if you are a buddhist), but early gen. (NW) Pentium-4 2.8GHz just sucks. Dual cores work wonders, except in case of Atom CPUs, where apparently nothing helps.
One must also forget about 512MB of RAM, which is often only 448MB, due to the effect of integrated VGA chips. Don't install Windows antivirus with on-access scan functionality under 768MB RAM and even then you will need patient. Practical minimum should be 1GB for WinXP or 1,5, rather 2GB for Win7 32-bit.
A big problem can be the regular (up to 4x workdaily) automatic updating of malware finger databases. Many AV vendors push these as delta-differentials, that kind of have to be recompiled with the already delivered database. When the database is 180-195 MB large, this can take almost all CPU for 3-4 minutes. Some AV vendors now have such memory problems that virus fingerprint databases loaded into do not even contain malware names. When a nasty object is found, the corresponding label (e.g. Trojan-Spy/YourMoneyGone.xyz) has to be read from disk, which can take suprisingly long.
All in all, a PC with a 2Gz Celeron CPU and 512MB RAM is no longer up to scrath to run Windows XP in a network-connected scenario. Please do not endanger other netizens by publishing such obsolete computers on the public net! I think they should be recycled the hard(ware) way.
Another vote for MSE. It Works.
"You might as well get your son a ticket to hell as give him a five string banjo." -unknown minister
Very fast, very high testing marks. Not free but you get what you pay for - it is worth it.
www.blueapples.org
http://knopper.net/knoppix/knoppix701-en.html
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I recommend Eset nod 32 for exactly this reason. They wrote portions of the program in assembler in order to be lighter.
Keep backup images handy and re-blast them if something is fubar.
Almost the right answer.
I'm the one-man IT department at a nursing home. I generally don't provide tech support to our residents, though there are are a few PCs in our library that I'm expected to keep up and running. In addition to the risk of malware, there's always the chance that some "knows enough to be dangerous" user will seriously screw something up.
The answer is here: http://www.faronics.com/products/deep-freeze/ (No, I don't work for them, this isn't a paid endorsement, that's not even a referral link.) Set the PC up once the way it's supposed to be, then install Deep Freeze. Any time you boot the PC, it's back the way I set it up. Aside from hardware failure, any problem that comes up is as simple as, "Have you tried turning it off and then on again?" Staff shuts down the library PCs every night, and I told them to just hit the switch on the power strip. Why bother with a proper shutdown when there's nothing to be written to the hard drive anyway. Next time it boots up, Windows doesn't know it wasn't shut down properly. I don't bother running AV software on those machines. Once a month, I un-freeze them, run Window Update, then re-freeze.
The basic version of Deep Freeze is $45/seat. At a typical IT salary, it pays for itself pretty quickly in avoiding re-installs. The only thing to watch out for is not to use the "boot thawed on next boot only" option when running Windows update. Sometimes you'll get updates that need to run stuff after reboot, then reboot again, and you can get stuck in a boot loop. (There is a fix available.)
If you really need a free-as-in-beer solution, I remember years ago stumbling on instructions for doing something similar with XP by using the Enhanced Write Filter software from XP Embedded. If interested, you can do your own Googling, and I have no idea whether this involves violating licensing agreements or copyrights.
Redundancy is good And also good.
Yeah, dead last according to a shill group made up of commercial AV vendors. Way to drink the coolaid. If you're going to tell me that MSE is less resource heavy than anything symantec puts out.. Well, you deserve your own fate.
The real truth is that all AV is equally bad. None of them will protect you from the real threat, which is malware that's too new to have signatures. "Heuristic" scanning that claims to detect previously unidentified malware is pure snake oil.
You use AV for two reasons:
1. To push old malware out. It's there, it's a vector that needs to be reduced.
2. As a CYA for compliance and auditing. Nothing more than a checkbox to prove that you're "doing something" if shit ever hits the fan.
In practice, MSE is the least obtrusive and least resource intensive AV scanner I've ever used. You install it, and forget about it. And that makes it the best. Every other AV package I've used has caused problems, crashes, or has broke other programs. MSE has never done any of these things, so it's the best.
MSE, however, is not licensed for anything larger than very small businesses so you'll have to deal with that as you see fit..
You are infinitely better off just trying to source some old memory chips from someone and upgrading the boxes. My parents had a perfectly good P4, but it ran like molasses, even after I disabled everything I could disable.
The problem is that modern problems are flat out memory hogs. Just running MS-Word and a web browser at the same time will suck up all the ram on the machine. You reach a point where you just have to say, "It's not worth my time struggling to make this work."
My company was sitting on a small stack of old DDR chips that were basically worthless, so they let me have a few, I upgraded my parents PC, and it started humming nicely again. I can handle multiple apps and antivirus without a problem now.
Yes, seriously. It's lightweight, it's free, it's integrated into Windows Update so it's really easy to get updates, and best of all it doesn't continually hassle you and go LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME! the way most of the other antivirus apps do. It just sits in your icon bar and does its job.
It's not brilliant, security-wise --- it's merely adequate --- but if you want something that hides itself away and gets on with things with a minimum of user panic, it's definitely the way to go.
Everything has an end of life, including computer hardware. It's time to put those creaky ancient machines out to pasture.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
If we're talking sniffing butts, I would be happy if it were dog sized instead of elephant sized.
More music, fewer hits
I tell em that MS is dropping support after tax day next year for their beloved XP and the following tax-day, they'll be killing Windows Activation for all XP systems. In other words, you're now in the enviable position that your computer will not run after tax-day 2015.
What options do you have?
1) I can build you a new system for $(x) with Win7 on it
2) I can convert your current system to Linux
a) Keep in mind that your system is obsolete by most standards (You've got a 3 on the tree stick) and few people even know how to fix it anymore.
b) any new hardware you buy from Walmart & etc. will not work with XP (no drivers as support was dropped when Win7 was released) so you are going to have to upgrade at some point.
By explaining it to them, I'm finding that by sticking with a $300 budget, most of them can find the money for the new build (it may take a while). The first thing is to lock in the Motherboard and CPU to avoid issues and with the cost of ram being down yet, I generally get a 4GB stick of memory for it. The only area that gives me fits is moving their data from the old drive to the new one. Thankfully, I finally bought an IDE to USB bay for that reason.
One thing that tends to make folks happy is that I throw in a cheap flash drive (I buy in quantity anyhow) that's used by Windows for backup. Saves my ass when I need to wipe and reinstall due to virus/malware as all of their settings and such are stored on it. Boot from my install flash drive and reinstall takes me less then 20 minutes and then use the flash drive and restore from backup for all their settings and such - usually takes longer to reinstall all their software and Win Updates though I tend to keep the flash drive up to date with latest image from MS.
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
Avast isn't heavy on CPU usage. It relies on fast HDD access. All antiviruses do and if it seems like they don't, they're simply not scanning as much as they should. Avast is the king resource usage vs detection rate so you should still use it.
Oh and to the couple morons above me recommending MSSE, you're completely out of touch with reality. It is the dead last worst rated antivirus in the entire world and a resource disaster. It's the last efficient scanner I've ever seen in my entire life and the disk IO is absurd.
Avast used to be good.
Then came the bloat and adverts. While the virus threat is always evolving and changing, some performance un-hancements are clearly development choices. Is there any reason, for example, to override the standard window controls with a super fancy custom rendered GUI that runs in 50x of the time of native controls? Particularly when this is a Windows application with no cross-platform needs at all? It's almost as bad as every ASUS utility GUI.
More Twoson than Cupertino
I'm also using ESET Nod32 and find it to be lightweight compared to other scanners I use/used. It also integrates nicely into Thunderbird and hasn't missed a malicious attachment there. Only annoyance with that is that there's no option to 'repeat this action for next findings'. This sometimes results in a clickfest when one of those malware waves is in full swing. Other than that there's not much to complain.
You'll pay the bill, I assume? If it works, there is no need to upgrade. XP is just fine, and any competent admin can secure it so that it remains usable but is less risky. Installing an anti-virus is part of it. I usually recommend MSE because it's low-footprint and free. However, I expect MS to drop MSE support for XP in 2014.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
I'm not trolling. Perhaps the best A/V for the clueless grandparent user is Linux.
A modern Linux with the LXDE window manager configured to look like/work like a Windows desktop using Firefox to web surf and access Gmail plus whatever the latest iteration of LibreOffice is for word processing has been a winner for me in similar circumstances. The biggest problem is when they have some obscure win32 app they are tethered to. In those cases, spend the only $$ you need to spend and use Crossover.
I usually try them out with a custom run-from-CD distro with the appropriate configurations and apps and do a regular install if they like it.
Most of them don't even know they aren't using Windows and receive in return fast, reliable performance free from most of the problems they have had before. The one or two that this is not a good solution for can be reverted to Windows. BONUS: your tech help burden is lessened and simplified.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
These tests evaluate the impact of anti-virus software on system performance, as programs running in background – such as real time protection antivirus software -
AV-comparatives performance chart
For more in depth see:
Performance-Test (AV) May 2013 PDF
NOD32 is very fast, its core is written in assembly. source from NOD32, see performance
The computer that made me spawn this post has not been running any virus checker for a number of years. No evidence of viruses when I checked it out. I left it running without one because AVAST brought it to its knees. The gentleman using this machine is tech savy (retired engineer, not EE), mid-to-late 70's, but not a computer power user. Mostly he uses it to check email (browser only), and write letters. My experience with users of that generation is that they get comfortable with what they have been using, but changing to MAC or LINUX would make them very uncomfortable, in spite of the fact that they use only a browser (usually IE) and a word processor.
Scissors to cut the cord, and glue to glue the USB ports and glue the CD-drives shut.
Oh wait, you wanted the computer to be more than a paperweight? Better hurry up, April 2014 is coming.
Seriously, some of the other answers are realistic, but only until Microsoft ends support.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I dunno, dogs are carnivores and their shit really stinks. Elephants are herbivores, I'd imagine their dung smells no worse than horseshit looking at it's composition.
How many systems are you talking about? If it's not a lot, I would recommend to the proprietors that they just replace the whole lot of them with cheap ChromeOS systems ($250 each if you go for the current Samsungs). That way, you won't be worrying too much about virii, the old folks can still surf matlock.com and you come out looking like a genius.
I agree, it's a great solution though you have to find an OS (linux based?) to act as the RDP thin client - with those USB, storage, printer features which aren't that trivial. You also need to pay some big $$ for the Server 2012 license, plus CAL, plus special remote use licenses which usually aren't even listed - but we can expect about $100 per thin client.
So it ain't cheap. And it's useful for a retirement establishment, not for retired people living in their own homes.
I have a couple of old netbooks which have slightly better specs than the ones you mentioned. Panda was the smallest CPU footprint AV I tried. It was still too big. Now, I run Malware-Bytes every couple of days, and rely on Chrome to catch the most obvious malware attempts in the websites I visit.
Really you have to let it go. You can spend days and weeks setting up antiviruses, wasting your time scanning disks, reinstalling Windows XP from scratch to get rid of infections etc. and by April all your work will have gone to waste.
It's hopeless. You may consider an upgrade to Windows 7 32bit for computer that have 1GB memory or more (that people will have to pay of their own pockets), maybe upgrading the memory is an option in some case, as well as a new HDD or even (better) an SSD. I'd say a old P4 based computer with 1.5GB ram and SSD makes a capable Windows 7 machine. But you might miss a SATA connector..
Instead, I think you should standardize on e.g. Linux Mint 13 Xfce. It's a LTS version, so supported till 2017 (based on Ubuntu 12.04). It's the lighter and easier to use, Windows 98/XP like variant though the discontinued LXDE edition was lighter.
There are slightly boring aspects, Duck Duck Go search by default in the browser rather than Google, and an outdated flash version. If you feel it's important, learn to change it and reproduce the changes in a few minutes after a new installation. Mint 15 Xfce is an option too but support will run out soon (stupid 9 month Ubuntu). Use it for brand new hardware, like a new rig with Ivy Bridge Celeron maybe?, or new printers/scanners.
Mint 13 is pretty nice and has about everything needed out of the box, you can add Google Earth to have something fun, impressive and useful.
Avast is lightweight... I am ruining it right now on 450mhz pentium 2 with 384mb of ram. Avast is the only free av that didn't slow this machine down.
---- GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
Come to think of it, even antivirus will be unsupported. They will refuse to install, update, or enable the resident protection and at the very least prompt for an upgrade to a newer Windows version.
Just remember if you install some of those AV programs they will try and install a toolbar and crap when they ask to update themselves in the future. Do you want them to install new version of program or ask for help when it asks?
I think it was AVG that got dumped when i eventually missed unchecking the box once on a machine and got a new search provider and other stupid shit :/
MSE is not so hot but it doesn't play silly games either
Learn to do everything for yourself and you free yourself from dependency on people you may or may not be able to trust.
BTW, changing your engine timing is really easy.
ESET NOD32 is the way to go. Very lightweight (the scanning engine is written in assembly...) and frequently updated. Well worth the price of admission.
I run MS Security Essentials on an old 1.2Ghz Celeron with 512mb RAM used as a standard-def media pc. Granted it doesn't see internet usage but I've never really noticed the anti-virus making trouble.
The virus-makers realized that your computer has a value for them.
For example:
- stealing your credit cards
- spam forwarding
- DDOS attack
- filesharing
- bit-coin mining or passwords cracking
etc...
So the virus now don't try to destroy your computer, but they try to find the best value of it.
So I would recommend that you install a program to alert you when an unknown program is trying to send some data on the Internet.
Wikipedia lists a few options:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Firewall_software
Personally, I use Comodo Personal Firewall version 5, since I don't like version 6.
If you really want an antivirus, you can disable the continuous scan, and only manually scan files that seem to connect somewhere.
I still run 3 Win2K machines, with 8 to 10 yrs old approximately, and for a few years I had a (free) Avira installed, until it stopped supporting Win2K and, more importantly, until the machines knelt down because of it. As time goes by, antivirus become fantastic CPU hogs.
:-).
:-), so I don't need AV heavy stuff ...
Don't blame me for still using an unsupported OS. I'm not an IT pro but I'm proud of never having had to reinstall any OS (the only scar I have from virus attacks is a crippled Excel which was "quarantined" many years ago -- but I can live without Excel
So a few years ago after trying a couple of free AVs, I found this reanimator thing -- http://greatis.com/security/reanimator.html -- and now it is what I use in all my PCs (even some newer ones with Win 7), helped by MS firewall and built-in security tools, and recommend it to family and friends. And it never let me down. But its not a real-time scanner/monitor: you can scan filesystem and memory for malware as with a regular AV, and I use it a lot to kill nasty startup processes that burn resources (Adobe and Java updaters, etc...). Reanimator's database and executable are updated very often. I don't even remember that it is there...
But, anyway, the most dangerous site I surf is Slashdot
Reanimator is not heavy and works either a "fire extinguisher" if you suspect you are infected or as a scan tool. In a couple of minutes I teach people how to use it (anyone without severe age damage can learn) and it is effective. However, I do not have experience in dealing with elder retired people.
Regarding switching to Linux, it's a bad day to talk to me about it: my usual server (not maintained by me), an old PC built with "pro" material, which since a f
Install $LightWeightDistro, configure Firefox, Thunderbird and Skype, enable auto login and that's all they'll ever need.
Don't give me some bullshit that it's too confusing for them. Clicking this obvious, labeled button does this obvious thing, there's nothing you can do to screw it up.
According to most AV reviews I have read (including CNET), MSE is dead last in effectiveness. As for Avast, I installed it when AVG 2013 refused to install. Haven't looked back since. I am not understanding "bloats and adverts". There are one or two signature updates a day. I see no "adverts". As for "bloat", I see by Task Manager Avast is using only 7 MB of memory. It has caught several viruses, including some real nasty ones. I really like the "boot scan" part. I had not had an AV program with that. The first time I ran it it found 3 Trojans. I think Avast is a good choice. Above AVG in reliability. I use it in conjunction with Threatfire. Seems to be a good harmony. Just my opinion.
Don't explain computers to laymen. Simpler to explain sex to a virgin. -- Robert A. Heinlein
This thing specs's says 768MB ram max. You may try running Windows 7, whose 32bit incarnation supports XP driver, on a more recent and faster laptop IDE HDD (if you haven't changed it already)
It's that simple. Most anti-virus load is I/O load. CPU should be fine. There is no such thing as centron, but most AMD semprons and Intel celerons should do fine with virus scanning load. Spinning hard drive is the bottleneck, easily fixed by SSD.
Makes sense only if it has SATA 2 or SATA 3, though. That will be true for most laptops from last 10 years.
Get a $60 SSD (60 or 90GB), replace hard drive with it. Replace the optical drive with the freed up hard drive. Put the optical drive in a USB enclosure, in case it is needed, though unlikely.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
Check out http://www.simplicitycomputers.co.uk/.
They make computers specifically designed for novice and more elderly users. You can either get full computer systems, or a USB "homekey" to boot other computers. It's based on Linux Mint, by the way.
(You don't mention whether you volunteer or get paid to service computers. If you get paid, avoid this approach as you might be out of a job! But if you volunteer, it should cut your maintenance workload.)
Andrew Yeomans
I'm running Comodo Internet Security on a AMD Sempron 1.75ghz chipped PC, admittedly with 2GB of DDR2 RAM. ... and it's free for personal use.
In fact I'm running it on every Windows PC in the house, including Windows 8 laptops!
It runs fine, I've never noticed any slowing
Don't blame me, it's usually 2 in the morning when I post
As far as light-weight AV, I am running with MSE only because the others bog computers down too badly to be of any use. As another poster said, why haven't you switched them to some kind of Linux that looks like Win XP but isn't? That deadline of 8 April 2014 will be here soon and having a computer running XP on the internet on 9 April 2014 is a horrible idea.
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Possible Recommendation: F-Secure, Kaspersky, or Sophos. According to AV Comparatives' testing, reported 6 May 2013 ("Impact of Anti-Virus Software on System Performance", info cut-off date April 2013), these three AV solutions (running with their default settings) showed the least performance impact out of 23 AV solutions tested. Performance areas tested: file copying, archiving/unarchiving, encoding/transcoding, installing/uninstalling apps, launching apps, downloading files. AVC 3-star AV: 0.4% impact: F-Secure, Kaspersky, Sophos. 0.6% impact: ESET. 1.3% impact: Symantec, Avast. 2.4% impact: BitDefender. AVC 2-star AV: 6.1% impact: AVIRA. 6.3%: Panda. 7.1%: AVG. 7.4%: Emsisoft. 8.2%: Trend Micro. 8.7%: BullGuard. 9.7%: Vipre. AVC 1-star AV: 13.2%: G DATA. 14.4%: Fortinet, McAfee. 17.4%: Qihoo. 17.5%: eScan. AVC 0-star AV (marked as "Tested"): 25.6% impact on performance - Kingsoft. Specific Notes/Issues: your issues concern older 2 GHZ CPUs and 512 MB RAM running XP, while the AVC test platform has a Intel Core i5 with 4 GB RAM running Win 7. Recommend you max-out the RAM on those machines, if possible. With an older system, there's also the possibility (or probability) that AV vendors may no longer cover it.
I am in charge of.a lab of 20 older Dells at a senior center with similar specs. I ended up uninstalling the antivirus since they had steadystate on them. This means whatever the virus does gets undone when the machine restarts, and of course they use user accounts . The seniors haven't complained much, only that the machines take awhile to boot up, and to get around that I have many machines start up automatically at 8am. Yes it's not secure, but it works.
I find that /bin/true returns too many false positives while detecting viruses. I've moved over to /bin/false which is just as lightweight.
Isn't Mint a bit too much for those PCs? Sure, Mint is lightweight, but I think you're pushing it. Something like xubuntu o lubuntu might fit the bill a bit better.