AntiVirus with decent anti-spyware (realtime) detection

[dantheman]

Darwin,

I guess there's no way to always keep our old computers (notebooks) at par with all the enhancements that are brought upon with the ever evolving technologies that most often require quite a bit more "juice". 

Anyway, if it's any indication of the way other programs behave, AVG8 Network Edition would take about an hour (if not more) to do a full scan of my notebook (4 years old).

[Darwin]

Dantheman - no doubt you're right. However, with AV and AS I can't really see why I'd need more power. The notebook used to run Norton and after that McAfee years ago. Anyway, not to worry -Bitdefender to the resuce (I can use it's real time threat detection and scan at night. No biggie. Doesn't have AS, though  I'll have to find something else to deal with that).

[Darwin]

Good news! BitDefender 2009 is out with built-in AntiSpyware!
Bad news... Win2k no longer supported 

[dantheman]

Yabutt!

Not that i want to sound like an ESET fanatic or somethin, but if my memory serves me well (i'm not the one who signs the contracts) it has support for most (if not all) systems.

[Grorgy]

wellllll from their help file

For seamless operation of ESET Smart Security, the system should meet the following hardware and software requirements:

Windows 2000, XP, 2003

400 MHz 32-bit (x86) / 64-bit (x64)
128MB RAM of system memory
35MB available space
Super VGA (800 x 600)

Windows Vista

1 GHz 32-bit (x86) / 64-bit (x64)
512MB RAM of system memory
35MB available space
Super VGA (800 x 600)

So not all, but most of what would be out there, in the windows world anyway!

[Grorgy]

Oh and by the way, i am a bit of a fanatic now lol. I was a fan of Kaspersky, but it started doing on odd things on my system, I was frequently, every time i'd log in, getting error reports which made no sense to me, so I looked around, and ESET, well it had a tick from mouser, at the time anyway, it uses nod, which seems to be a favourably reviewed and well thought of AV and I've set it and more or less forget it.  It updates maybe 2 or 3 times a day, depending on when they release one, i have it set to check every hour and on startup, but not more than once an hour.  So I am a happy eset person 

[Darwin]

I'm sure ESET would have been fine - the specs of my Win2k notebook are far above the system requirementst that ESET lists for the OS. My decision was made based more on the fact that it costs me nothing to use BitDefender as I've got 16 months remaining on a 3 system licence. BitDefender 2008 is still supported and installed no problem and a quick scan took 29 minutes. I can live with this!

[4wd]

One I haven't heard of before but gets the paw of approval on BearWare is RISING AntiVirus.

System requirements are listed as Win98 -> Vista and includes pretty much anti-everything.

I haven't tried it, download is a little on the large side at ~54MB but maybe worth a shot.

I've always found Bear's picks to be pretty much on the money.

BTW, he also picks out RISING Firewall, (a free version), but his link is broken and I can't seem to find another.

[Darwin]

So, Josh, what did you finally wind up deciding on?

[Josh]

My apologies for not replying to this. I have decided and am currently running on Webroot Spysweeper. I might be moving back to Symantec Endpoint Protection as it is free from the army, but I am letting spysweeper have a run for a few months. It has helped stop some of the malware my wife tries to install, so its working as it should it appears.

[Darwin]

My apologies for not replying to this.

-Josh (November 03, 2008, 01:01 AM)

No worries! I'm using Webroot AV and AS 6 on my XP and Vista machines and am very happy. One odd thing is that I had two licenses that were upgradeable (from 5.x to 6), both deriving from the same original purchase of Spysweeper (took advantage of an offer to get a second licence), and yet one upgraded to Internet Secuity Essentials and the other to AV and AS... strange!

I'm running BitDefender on my Win2k machine. It's 'sped up' a lot since I first installed it and all seems well.

[lanux128]

It has helped stop some of the malware my wife tries to install, so its working as it should it appears.

-Josh (November 03, 2008, 01:01 AM)

emphasis mine..

[dantheman]

After a fresh install, i tried Threatfire which just created havoc.

Fortunately everything was back to normal in a flash with WinPatrol.

Now i've been looking at COMODO's free firewall and AV:
http://www.personalf...om/download_cis.html

Any takers on this one? Is it low on resources? Quick to update?

[tomos]

Now i've been looking at COMODO's free firewall and AV:
http://www.personalf...om/download_cis.html

Any takers on this one? Is it low on resources? Quick to update?

-dantheman (November 04, 2008, 01:13 PM)

did you try that out yourself Dantheman?
(I've got the same questions!)

[dantheman]

Tomos,

If my memory serves me well, yes i did try it and liked it.
It seemed quite reasonable on ressources but our community has since gone to NOD32 Security with AV for the next two years so i won't be looking around for free stuff for quite a while now. ESET is exceptionally low on ressources. You hardly even notice it's there. 

Can't say the same for AVG (to which we were previously subscribed to).

[tomos]

thanks dan
I'll pass on that info (good to know about AVG too ..)