Free Anti-Virus & spyware software for PC?

D

Doryman

New member
I am faced with the distasteful task of keeping my wife's XP PC alive. I recall a couple of years ago there were some good, free anti-virus and spyware alternatives available, but I can't find the link in which the specific ones were mentioned.

Can anyone here help?

Thanks,
Warren
 
Grisoft's AVG Free Edition and Avira's AntiVir both get decent reviews.

I've got AntiVir installed on an XP VM running on my Linux box - it has a reputation for having very low resource usage, without sacrificing effectiveness.

It does have a "nag" popup every couple of weeks, but a quick perusal of Google will provide details on how to muzzle it.
 
Brent":3ttvqr3k said:
I used ClamWin for several months
http://www.clamwin.com/

It is free and open source.
Click to expand...

Cool - wasn't aware Clam was out for Windows, thanks for the tip.

I'm using ClamAV for on-access scanning on our Linux file servers at work. It's worked flawlessly, and in fact, is far superior to the commercial solutions we used on our old Windows/Netware servers. We're giving it a decent workout - 2000+ users, and several terabytes of heavy file serving across 20+ servers.

Resource utilization is very low under Linux, and nothing has slipped by it in the 9+ months since I've installed it. I'm guessing the Windows version uses the same virus signatures, so it's probably on par with the server version, at least in effectiveness.

Notice any performance issues?
 
Nope It worked fine and used small amount of system resources but I schedule virus and spyware scans when I go to sleep. The ClamWin site and forum is very active. I use a hardware firewall along with a software pgm and anonymous server is hide my tracks which reduces most threats or attacks.
 
How much memory does the machine have? Most people's have two
little, which makes XP really, really annoying to deal with. With 1GB,
it runs well. And considering how cheap memory is.

One hint: When installing new memory, always run a memory checker
from a CD for several hours before restarting from the hard drive.

I put more memory in my laptop recently. Aftere about 20 minutes, the
memory would heat up and fail. It was nice to discover this
using the memory checker instead having to re-install everything.

More details if anyone wants them...

Mike
 
How much memory does the machine have?

Most have 512 Mb. I use a free RAM defrag program at work b/c I have 6 -8 open apps (mostly MS Office, IE and one DOS app) and always runs low of RAM. The RAM defrag works fine. I can use RAM down to 10 Mb and Ram defrag runs and restores RAM to 235Mb. It happens about 38 times per day. This feature should be built into the OS. IMHO. I dont use it at home. I bought a Gateway notebook from our oldest daughter from Circuit City for $849 and no rebates. 15" wide screen, AMD Athlonx2(Turion), 160 G hard drive, DVD/CD burner and 2 G RAM. It is "way fast" vs "no way" according to her and I believe her and didnt uninstall all of the extras.
Now Dad wants a new notebook. My Acer is 4 years.

At one time Crucial had posted a free RAM tool program and in the early days they shipped it on CD with the ram. I agree with you to run some of RAM diagnostics after installing RAM but I dont always. I think it is important on servers or high end gaming box, for example; installing matched pairs now they are in a kit, ECC, CAS. Corsair has an useful FAQ online.


Thanks for the tip. Which memory diagnostics tool are you using?
 
The memory tester I run is memtest86...

It's rare to run into bad memory, but often times it seems like
the machine will boot, scribble all over the hard-drive, then
crash when you do get bad memory.

Mike
 
FreeRam XP
http://www.yourwaresolutions.com/software.html#framxpro

Freeware application to free and optimize your computer's RAM (Random Access Memory), resulting in an increase in system performance and productivity. Automatically configures itself for ease of use and also features advanced options and customizability. FreeRAM XP Pro has been designed to be easy to use yet highly customizable by computer novices and experts alike.

Features and options include:

Automatic, real-time memory monitoring and optimization
Fast, threaded memory freeing with stop option
AutoFree option intelligently optimizes RAM without sacrificing performance
system metric and performance monitors
Advanced tray support
Memory reporting and diagnostic logging
Simple, attractive interface
RAM-cuts (RAM-freeing Windows shortcuts)
Customizable Windows hotkey support
Access to Windows memory-related tweaks that could enhance system performance (new in 1.50)
Process memory usage reporting (new in 1.50)
Unique memory compression technology directly reduces applications' "working set" memory requirements instantly and without swap file usage: completely unlike other memory programs (new in 1.50)
More options and customizability
 
AVG for antivirus.
Spybot search and destroy for spyware
Ad aware for spyware
Zonealarm for the firewall

Its all free.

Trex
 
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