Best Antivirus for Windows XP

[Coswar]

A Few of my clients need to run XP on their machines for compatibility with older software. Virtual Machines are not an option so please don't suggest anything other than Antivirus. I can't use compatibility mode either.

 

So what's the safest Antivirus for XP?

[terrytek]

WHAT ARE THEY DOING STILL ON XP??? It's dead. They can at least use Vista.

[Hoppa]

Malwarebytes and avast?

I assume they work on XP

[flibberdipper]

I've been using Avast Free and then once a month I do a full scan with Malwarebytes. Haven't gotten a single virus over the past 3 months (other than false positives).

[lani100]

WHAT ARE THEY DOING STILL ON XP??? It's dead. They can at least use Vista.

Please read, his clients are using XP not himself.

But yeah Malwarebytes and Avast are a solid choice, and yes they do work XP

[terrytek]

Please read, his clients are using XP not himself.

But yeah Malwarebytes and Avast are a solid choice, and yes they do work XP

I did read the OP. Hence, "they."

[Coswar]

WHAT ARE THEY DOING STILL ON XP??? It's dead. They can at least use Vista.

Like I said it is for software compatibility.

 

Thanks everyone for those suggestions - had Avast in mind already and I use Malwarebytes all the time - wasn't sure if they were XP compatible.

[Coswar]

Heard a lot lately about Avira, anyone know if its any good? Hadn't heard of it until lately.

[TechCIDLC]

According to AV-TEST.org, the antivirus program that has the most protection, performance and usability for Windows XP is: Kaspersky Internet Security 2014.

[Scia]

Ubuntu?

[Coswar]

Ubuntu?

Read the damn main post

[dalekphalm]

WHAT ARE THEY DOING STILL ON XP??? It's dead. They can at least use Vista.

 

 

Ubuntu?

 

 

Read the damn main post

@Coswar this seems to be an issue in any forum, but lately it's been getting bad. Some people read the Thread Title and just post seemingly without reading the actual post (Since if they did, they wouldn't have posted their completely useless posts). It's nice to see awesome and valid suggestions though to counter balance this.

 

I fully agree with Avast and Malwarebytes. Both are still fully compatible with XP, even with the latest versions. Avast is my favourite free anti-virus, and Malwarebytes is a great backup/emergency scanner.

 

AVG is another free one. We use it at work on our Windows XP machines (Well, former work, just quit and starting a new job). I prefer Avast over AVG, but the boss is EXCEPTIONALLY STUBBORN AND IRRATIONAL when it comes to computer and IT things. He barely tolerates any Antivirus on the machines at all, and will ONLY let us install AVG.

 

He's under the incredibly bad/foolish impression that Windows XP will be totally fine without A/V because "not many people use it anymore". I'm glad I left as his IT tech, because I don't want to be there when they finally get a major virus outbreak and it wrecks havoc through his network.

[Coswar]

@Coswar this seems to be an issue in any forum, but lately it's been getting bad. Some people read the Thread Title and just post seemingly without reading the actual post (Since if they did, they wouldn't have posted their completely useless posts). It's nice to see awesome and valid suggestions though to counter balance this.

 

I fully agree with Avast and Malwarebytes. Both are still fully compatible with XP, even with the latest versions. Avast is my favourite free anti-virus, and Malwarebytes is a great backup/emergency scanner.

 

AVG is another free one. We use it at work on our Windows XP machines (Well, former work, just quit and starting a new job). I prefer Avast over AVG, but the boss is EXCEPTIONALLY STUBBORN AND IRRATIONAL when it comes to computer and IT things. He barely tolerates any Antivirus on the machines at all, and will ONLY let us install AVG.

 

He's under the incredibly bad/foolish impression that Windows XP will be totally fine without A/V because "not many people use it anymore". I'm glad I left as his IT tech, because I don't want to be there when they finally get a major virus outbreak and it wrecks havoc through his network.

I agree, most of the threads I create have a least one idiot who refuses to read before either posting something irrelevant or jumping to conclusions.

Yeah, I've never really been a fan of AVG, always seemed a to hog resources and lacked functionality. Your (ex) boss is going to get himself into trouble in a few months when a virus gets into the network and every computer needs to be wiped....lol. Or worse if his computers are specifically targeted - techies need to be listened to more, these people literally have no idea what they are talking about.

[Scia]

Read the damn main post

 

I did. =P

[Tsuki]

personally i think avast and avg are too much of resource hogs for winxp. i would use something like nod32, which works really well and sits quietly in the background doing its thing

[flibberdipper]

personally i think avast and avg are too much of resource hogs for winxp. i would use something like nod32, which works really well and sits quietly in the background doing its thing

Right now Avast is only taking up 40MB of my RAM/0% CPU utilization from it. How is that a lot?

[Tsuki]

Right now Avast is only taking up 40MB of my RAM/0% CPU utilization from it. How is that a lot?

i had it on my old winxp laptop, and maybe things have changed a bit more recently, but it would eat 500+MB of ram almost constantly, and almost a gig whenever it decided to scan.

[flibberdipper]

i had it on my old winxp laptop, and maybe things have changed a bit more recently, but it would eat 500+MB of ram almost constantly, and almost a gig whenever it decided to scan.

What version were you running? I have the latest version and it's a lot easier on the resources than that.

[terrytek]

What version were you running? I have the latest version and it's a lot easier on the resources than that.

Yeah, mine used as little as 20MB.

[flibberdipper]

Yeah, mine used as little as 20MB.

Every megabyte counts when you have 998 of them for RAM.

[terrytek]

Every megabyte counts when you have 998 of them for RAM.

You know 1 GB is 1024 MB, not 1000, right?

[flibberdipper]

You know 1 GB is 1024 MB, not 1000, right?

Yup, but I have 24MB set aside for the iGPU, and my Dell takes 2MB for other hardware. I have a 1GB stick in it.

[terrytek]

Yup, but I have 24MB set aside for the iGPU, and my Dell takes 2MB for other hardware. I have a 1GB stick in it.

What's the RAM max?

[Tsuki]

What version were you running? I have the latest version and it's a lot easier on the resources than that.

its been a probly 4 years or so, so i dunno which version, i just havent touched it since. only had 2G ram total on that pos using half of it for av was just silly

[flibberdipper]

What's the RAM max?

For my Dell, it's 2GB (they have to be matching sticks, or it refuses to boot).

 

its been a probly 4 years or so, so i dunno which version, i just havent touched it since. only had 2G ram total on that pos using half of it for av was just silly

Oh god, I remember having to use Avast back then on 512MB. It sucked. Even though my old motherboard only "supported" 384MB, I pushed it to 768MB, which helped a little.