BleepingComputer.com: Antivirus for Windows 9X

Hello,

I have a customer who doesn't want to give up her old computer and buy something newer. She basically wants to keep her Windows Me computer.

She used to have AVG 7.5 on it, but since that is no longer being updated and 8.5 won't run on Windows Me she has no antivirus.

Can anyone recommend one that will work for Windows Me?

Thanks,

John

Edit: Moved topic from Windows 95/98/ME to the more appropriate forum. ~ Animal

Avast should work fine:

http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html

AVG is pretty heavey on Windows Me...

Welcome to BC John.

fyremoon, on Jun 2 2009, 04:15 PM, said:

Well anti virus apps where do I start? I've used McAfee in its different versions for 12 years then the updates stopped working. I bought a newer version and it still didn't work so I downloaded AVG Free Edition 7.5.524 which is the last version that supports Win9x/ME. It worked ok for a few months then I had trouble again with the updates again. Because its 14 months old it needs a lot of time to download the updates two and half hours on dialup. I would do a repair but that didn't work back to two and half hours download.

I downloaded Avast! Home Edition 4.8.1296 which appeared to work ok. The updates were a bit of a pain you would see the download window then it would said installing so I would turn of my connection then it said cannot communicate with Avast server so it has to be connected for a LONG time to install. I decided to do a full scan not that I have any virus's but the screen shows never scanned. Now I left it running for 10 minutes as you watch the screen showing which file and folder its scanning so I thought I would make a brew because it could take a while to finish. When I came back it had stopped. Now every other virus scanner that I've used always shows the final screen with the ammout of files scanned and anything it found Avast doesn't And it still shows that I've never done a scan.

There is also AntiVir Personal 7.00.03.02 which is the last version that supports Win9x/ME. I've downloaded it and did a quick test but I never kept it installed.

A friend of mine builds his own servers and web sites and he recommended I use ClamWin 0.95.1 which I downloaded a few days ago and installed it last night on a new rebuild of WinME. Now it only 5 days old so it doesn't need many updates which took a few seconds. I did an update a few minutes ago and again it takes a few seconds. I started a full scan last night but I stopped it I could be bothered to wait until it finished, I'm presuming it would show a report screen afterwards.

Now AVG started saying last August that they were stopping support for AVG 7.5. Then in October they said they were extending it until more users have switched to v8.0. Then in February they were extending again so as far as I know you can still get updates for v7.5 well you could a month ago when I last had AVG installed.

The choice is your customers ClamWin 0.95.1 seems the best one to use and update at the moment and it still supported by all Windows systems and its free.

If your interested and need a read check out the comments What Anti-Virus do you use on Piriform. It was started last September. You can also check the video's on YouTube to what they recommend.

AVG 7.5 no longer updates with Windows 98.
The last update to AVG 7.5 prompts you to upgrade to 8.5 and nags a bit about it
Unfortunately 8.5 does not work with 98!
I wish AVG would check for intstalled Windows versions, but it does not

I am trying Avast on 98

i use avast on my win me computer
its a good anti virus and worked fine for me
and its got the on access scanning which dosent take that much cpu or memory power

I use ZoneAlarm 6.1.737 on my system that runs Win98SE

Some of us running Windows ME simply do not have the money to go out and buy a new computer. I got mine, about fourth-hand, free, from my youngest sister. The AVG Free was already installed on the computer when I received it.

On 21 May 2009, I got the last update to AVG Free 7.5.560 with Internal Virus Database Version 270.12.36/2126. This is the one that has all those nagging pop-up promts to down-load AVG 8.5. I sure wish that I could, but we all know that AVG 8.5 will NOT run on Windows ME.

I will probably try Avast home edition (unless I read about a better free AV, that will work on ME), I have yet to download it. I first want to locate ALL of the AVG Free 7.5 files so that I can be sure that when I remove it that I get all of it, since this computer has very limited space.

Stang777, on Jun 3 2009, 05:02 PM, said:

i uesd to use zonealarm 6 with antivirus
it was good but was slow and slowed the computer down so much
and i had probloms when installing network cards lol

Laffnmule's Lode, little trick about AVG Free Uninstall?

Download Version 8.5 and commence to install it. It will give you the Option to uninstal previous Versions, click ok and let it do that, then cancel the Install. After that search for any AVG Free Files? You will find very few of them, Mate.

starcraftmaster, on Jun 3 2009, 12:13 AM, said:

I never had a problem with the version I ran being slow or slowing down my computer at all. That seems to the thing about antivirus programs, one that works great on one computer does not work so great on another

I also agree that Avast is a great antivirus.

Keithuk, on Jun 2 2009, 05:15 PM, said:

ClamWin has no real-time detection and poor detection rates, so I don't understand why it's recommended.

Eyesee, on Jun 3 2009, 12:12 AM, said:

They have been trying to discontinue 7.5 for 9 months, as I've said it used to continue updating a month ago.

Someones, on Jun 3 2009, 11:26 AM, said:

It was my friends brother in law that recommended it to him and he told me because he was having problems with AVG 7.5 nagging screens on Vista.

Well that doesn't matter to me because I don't have it running all the time whats the point? Anything you download or are given then you can do a scan on those files.

Yes Avast appear to work ok but there were a lot of niggling things with it which I've explained.

The point of having it running all the time is that sometimes websites download things to your computer without you knowing about it and if you do not have real time detection on, your computer will become infected. Not too long ago I loaded a website I had gone to many times in the past to watch a tv show and ZoneAlarm popped up telling me that several viruses were attempting to be downloaded to my computer. ZoneAlarm stopped them from downloading but had I not had real time protection on, my computer would have become infected. If it were not for ZoneAlarms real time protection, I would not have even known anything had been downloaded to my computer. Viruses do not always knock and wait for you to let them in, they just break in.

I am trying Avast

The boot time is considerably slower!
Mouse response takes about 30 seconds