Netbook Antivirus

[davmoo]

Any opinions on the best antivirus for an Asus netbook running Windows XP?

(And switching to Linux is not an option for this particular client.)

[ajax299]

You want something light and effective hmmm? Cloud AV and a couple on-demand scanners should do the trick. Also firewalls are fun to look at but we're talking AV's here. Cloud av... You've got Panda but I just don't feel right recommending it. MSE is a suite so I'm not gonna recommend it. Immunet it promising but still in Beta with some bugs.

You know what? Go with Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE), Malwarebytes, SuperAntiSpyware, and if you'd really not like to get infected have a good look at Sandboxie. You could probably get away with just Sandboxie but the on demand scanners are small and only run when you want them to and it's nice to have a safety net if you let something through the sandbox or an exploit for the sandbox is found. Or if you get a virus through, say, USB flash-drive. Or if you kick it old school with floppy discs, Office Space style.

Since this is a netbook, admittedly running XP, you probably have limited RAM. So you might also want to check out Cleanmem.

Linky-links: http://www.techsupportalert.com/cont...list-world.htm http://www.filehippo.com/download_se...essentials_xp/ http://www.filehippo.com/download_ma..._anti_malware/ http://www.filehippo.com/download_superantispyware/ http://www.filehippo.com/search?q=sandboxie http://majorgeeks.com/CleanMem_d5993.html

And if you use firefox there are security add-ons... but I'm going over the top. You probably don't do anything dangerous.

[davmoo]

Originally Posted by ajax299

You probably don't do anything dangerous.

No, I don't. But the client that I'm looking for this for is one of those types that has to click on everything and open every email. The netbook he just brought me because "its acting funny" had 147 infections...so many that it was pointless to do anything but wipe it and start over. You have no idea how tempted I was to tell him "it can't be repaired, its junk, I'll give you $25 for the parts" because people like that are too stupid to be using the intarwebs

I use MSE on my own laptops, but just wanted to see if there was anything lighter for the netbook world, especially since this is one of the original EeePCs with only a 16GB SSD. I did just bump it up to 2GB of memory simply because I had extra DDR2 laying here on the workbench.

[tehboris]

http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/

[xcorvis]

Originally Posted by tehBoris

http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/

Seconded. It's very light weight and small, it's well integrated and not annoying.

[tokenuser]

Originally Posted by xcorvis

Seconded. It's very light weight and small, it's well integrated and not annoying.

And importantly - readily (auto) updated in an unobtrusive manner.

I am not a fan of FF, especially on a device with a small HDD. This will irk some, but I'd try to keep it as generic MS as possible since all the parts are inplace. I would turn the popup blocker on, and tweak as many of the security settings as possible to secure it a bit more. IE7 is actually pretty good security wise. Not sure if the jump to IE8 would be worth it or not.

[nav13eh]

Originally Posted by tokenuser

I am not a fan of FF, especially on a device with a small HDD. This will irk some, but I'd try to keep it as generic MS as possible since all the parts are inplace. I would turn the popup blocker on, and tweak as many of the security settings as possible to secure it a bit more. IE7 is actually pretty good security wise. Not sure if the jump to IE8 would be worth it or not.

I'm not going to pick a fight for the FF thing, but might I recommend Chrome. Considering it is "unhakable" and IE6-8 are filled with holes. Plus in my experience, chrome is much better at handling the web.

[tokenuser]

Originally Posted by nav13eh

I'm not going to pick a fight for the FF thing, but might I recommend Chrome. Considering it is "unhakable" and IE6-8 are filled with holes. Plus in my experience, chrome is much better at handling the web.

Bear with me ... I am not a huge fan of IE. When I was on the PC I was a huge Opera fan (for many many years) - but under OSX I am using Safari.

But in XP especially it is so ingrained in the OS (the help system for instance) that it makes the sense on devices with limited resources - because it is already running partially in the background anyway.

Also, you are falling for the FLOSS FUD ... IE6 terrible. IE7 had decent security, and IE8 (especially in conjunction with MSE) is great. Its just as secure as browsers based on WebKit (Chrome, Safari). Want independent verification? Check the CERT site (http://www.us-cert.gov). You'll soon see just how "unhackable" Chrome actually is.

Having said that, both Google and MS are responsible internet citizens and issue fixes and patches as soon a they are available. FireFox and the Mozilla community as well.

So - love it or hate it, when resources are limited (and since you cant delete IE, just chose not to use it as a web browser) I'd stick with it and save the HDD space for something else ... and when 90% of the internet was designed to run with it and its inherent *ahem* "unique attributes" it is a good choice.

[ajax299]

I'll back up IE8 recommendations. It seems to have pretty tight security. I just like firefox so much.

[tehboris]

IE isn't nearly as convient to use without JavaScript or cookies enabled compared to Firefox with NoScript and any cookie manager.