Which AV after MSE?

Hi guys!

I'm new to the forum but not new to XP, been using it for the last 8 years with no problems whatsoever and in spite of Microsoft's scaremongering I'll continue to use it until it packs in all together.

However I am a little confused about the antivirus software. I currently use Microsoft Security Essentials but will have no choice but to change to another one come April 8th. My problem is because I've used MSE for so long, I really have no idea which av software to change to.

I've heard good things about Avast and AVG (and they're free - double bonus!) but in all honesty I have no idea which of the 2 would be the best.

Because there will be no more security updates from Microsoft after April 8th, I need to have a really good one just to ensure that my lovely XP pc remains virus free after that date.

I really would appreciate any advice, tips, comments from anyone as I want to get this new av software installed within the next few days.

Thanks in advance!

 

mse is continuing support for one more year, avast is good also, and if you are wanting to try something new 360 security internet from Quiho is very good and will support xp for a very long time as xp is still very prevalent overseas and this is a chinese company.

http://www.360safe.com/

and it is also free, long time downloading though, so do not uninstall your antivirus until you have 360 downloaded to your desktop, and then you can disconnect from the internet, uninstall your current av and then install 360,

I am using 360 on 2 xp pc's and avast on another xp.

 

I downloaded 360 and while it was installing it was looking for anti-virus software already installed on my computer and it found Symantec Endpoint Protection. So that was the anti-virus software that was on my computer the whole time that I couldn't find in the pass. It's not located in add/remove programs or in the program folder in my c drive. The only place I found a folder from it was going to the command prompt, typed regedit and I found it under Software. Now I was thinking of deleting that Symantec folder from there but would like to get your advice first, thanks.

 

go ahead and delete

then you can go to regedit, (start/run/type in regedit and hit ok)

in the edit menu, click find, type in Symantec, and then click on find next, delete all the entries it finds, but first back up your registry with erunt:

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/erunt/

 

yeah I deleted the folder and was now able to install 360 security. 360 is currently using a lot of memory by the way, even if I turn off all protection. Do you know a way to lower the memory usage? Is having it not start up when the computer starts up the only way?(I haven't tried that way yet). I know it's not recommended especially after the XP deadline....

 

First you want to download 360 and download the definitions, save both to your desktop

then disconnect from the internet, uninstall your current antivirus, reboot

after restart, then install first the 360 and then the definitions database.

run a quick scan if it does not start a scan on it's own, and then reconnect to the internet.

It will take awhile for the downloads to complete,

On the 2 pc's I have running xp, there is no excess memory usage

you want the antivirus to start at startup.

I believe the excess memory usage is due to the fact that you are online.

Remember that you can only have one antivirus running in real time and even if you have the protection off they may still be conflicting.

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did you completely remove the original antivirus before installing 360

 

Yeah I had to completely remove the original antivirus before installing which I did. I did install 360 and it started a scan by itself and found about 17 threats. I didn't disconnect from the internet though. So I'm supposed to run a scan while disconnected from the internet? I didn't download any definition database by the way.

 

If you did not download the database, 360 will download it, I downloaded it before hand because it was a big download and I did not want to sit and wait for it to update.

Make sure you read the threats correctly, as it learns your pc, there may be some false positives.

make sure to do a full scan as the initial scan is a quick scan.