[What software to use for Malware protection]

I now have a virgin XP Home Edition on Pentium 4, 2.8 GHz, 730 MB RAM. The question is what to choose for malware protection. Over the past 15+ years on a variety of machines I've used lots of products. Long ago I had McAfee Office Suite and installed all components (What a mistake!) and they poped up everywhere and I never did get rid of all the bits and pieces. I have used many variants of the Norton products. They seem to work OK but they want to do everything and that makes them complicated to control. AVG seemed very big and consumed a lot of resources. Trend Micro took at least 5 minutes and nearly all of the machine to do its thing after bootup and I could never get it to suspend. I tried Kapersky and CA but don't remember much about them.

I used several different free spyware and adware programs and they were generally well behaved. As I moved to the various "suites" I stopped using these separate programs.

Fry's always had a handful of products that were free, or nearly free, after rebate and that was often how I chose. Some of my complaints above were based on experience many years ago so that all may have changed. I have not had any disabling malware problems and I'd like to keep it that way.

This virgin, just recovered, XP machine has modest CPU and 756MB RAM which is the max it can take. I like the idea of free though I'd pay for rock-solid, simple, and effective. Fry's has quite a few brands that are free, or nearly free after rebate, and I watch their ads anyway so I can wait till my choice comes along. I've got an unused 3 user Norton 360 sitting on the shelf but I figure it will be more invasive and complex than the Norton Internet Suite I have been using on my newer machines.

Any guidance or suggestions?

 

What is in my signature is all that I use. I can't remember the last time that I had a problem. Of course, I don't go willy-nilly all over the internet.

 

MSE is a good choice as is Avast, which I have been using for the last few years. No complaints so far.

On top of that I also use SpyShelter & WinPatrol. Along with a little common sense,this rounds up my online always on security.

I always run Malwarebytes & SuperAntiSpyware weekly.

For checking programs/apps update I use Secunia PSI weekly.

 

I was very impressed with Secunia PSI and have it set to run weekly (on my other machine) and it is accurate and non-coercive. It seems to point out missing updates and patches no matter where the application is living. It found some old versions of apps ( Quicktime and various Adobe apps) hanging around that were probably the source of problems I was having in keeping those updated.

I used avast free version on a onetime basis recently and it seemed well behaved. What do you rely on it to do?

I have used malwarebytes and it produced a very long log. How would I recognize a problem and how would I know what to do about it? Maybe looking at the log is not the way to tell.

..Paul..

 

No need to look into Malwarebyte's log until somebody like broni tells you to do so ! If it finds anything suspicious, it allows you to deal with it straight away. The log is generated only for info & further examination.