Vistapocalypse

English Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mP7_IVQ0cgY

It’s sad that MSFN has become a battleground for tiny cliques. I think the forum’s “reputation” feature should be disabled because it has been reduced to a weapon of war. I’m beginning to wonder why I’m still here, aside from trying to prevent AstroSkipper from rambling on and on about crappy security software while denigrating more effective options. I just might have to abandon this “Funny Farm.”

“Physician, heal thyself.” Sounded a little “insulting, provocative or completely off-topic” to me, but I’m not that easily offended. (You’d have to work at it like D.Draker did.)

Your link says there is no x64 version of Delta, so “no” is the short answer.

@Tangy Are you still using Avast?

Tangy could ask you the same question, since you posted a screenshot on June 12 showing “Last scan was 3 years ago” and Real-Time Protection “Not Protected”: Evidently you were not actually using SAS Professional at all until Cixert posted about it on June 11 - despite having a “Lifetime Professional Subscription.” (You did run a scan on June 18, but I assume that nothing was detected.) It’s understandable that SAS fell into disuse, since you had better security software installed - specifically Avast Premier until a few months ago, which is probably the best available option - particularly since you regard both Norton and Kaspersky as verboten. I’m surprised that statement only got a “Like” and not an “Upvote” from someone who has no real interest in this topic. 🤔 Perhaps your attempt at sarcasm was deemed rather weak? In any case, your reputation is certain to rise as long as I am perceived as being “against” you, which is fine with me! Let’s keep up the debate my friend!

Succinctly put!

I will be interested to see what you can find! (Even the customer reviews at Amazon are older than the article that I linked to above.) I just watched a YouTube video from November 2021, however only the Free Edition was tested, and unfortunately it missed a lot of malware samples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mP7_IVQ0cgY

Yes, that is exactly what I used SAS Free Edition for. And I’m sure that your main article will include one. Meanwhile, here’s a rather unfavorable review: https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/superantispyware-professional-60

Your screenshots show “Not Protected” under Real-Time Protection? I guess you keep that feature turned off since you are relying on Malwarebytes Premium 3.5.1 for real-time protection. I am also a true believer in good real-time protection, but I don’t think SAS Professional has ever been tested by an independent lab and reviews are rather unfavorable.

You haven’t written a “main article” on SUPERAntiSpyware yet. When you do, please explain why one might wish to purchase a licence for this when a Free Edition is available. 🤔

Many Americans, particularly those of the postwar “Baby Boom” generation (of which I am a relatively young member), seem to imagine that old age has been conquered, and that there is no such thing as cognitive decline (and therefore no such thing as being too old to run for elected office). I have played chess since I was a youngster and competed in chess tournaments, and I regret to inform my generation that cognitive decline is an inescapable fact of life! Consider that there has never been a world chess champion who was 60 years old, and only four men managed to hang on to the title beyond age 50 (none within the last 60 years). It’s obviously not because we are too feeble to move the chess pieces. Experience? Wisdom? Those things count for next to nothing when confronting a bright young CPU with uncorrupted chess software! They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and there is an image on Twitter that perhaps makes this point more eloquently than I can (although you might not be able to see it using one of those Windows XP browsers): https://twitter.com/BobbyFischerTru/status/1599805129209049090

It’s not really surprising that this topic didn’t fade away after May 31. Recent revelations bring to mind a character in a well-known movie of the Cold War era: https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Brigadier_General_Jack_D._Ripper

Perhaps the new owners at RealDefense (yes, Americans spell “defence” with an “S”) are not as keen on supporting XP - but then again, even the previous management had an August 2018 blog post that you might not really care for. It sounds like definitions are still dual-signed even for the Professional X Edition at this time. As I recall, the Free Edition did not register itself in Security Center. Is that also true of your paid version? This was at least a product that didn’t cause me any problems.

PC Tools was actually owned by Symantec, which might mean different things to different people in terms of its reputation. 🤔 I use the past tense because PC Tools was discontinued 10 years ago, but of course an old firewall should still work on an old OS. Another oldie that is perhaps worth mentioning is Privatefirewall.

I used SUPERAntiSpyware Free several years ago. According to their Frequently Asked Questions, only the Free Edition and Technicians Edition are compatible with Windows XP/Vista, whereas the Professional X Edition requires Windows 7+. I can’t comment on its effectiveness because it never once detected anything in my case - but I did not suspect there was anything on my PC to detect. (I always had a good real-time antivirus installed and only used other products such as this one for on-demand scanning.) It is an American product that was recently acquired by RealDefense, based in California.

No need because that installer is still available from Kaspersky’s website (along with various paid versions that supported Vista): https://products.s.kaspersky-labs.com/ Only Kaspersky Free 19.0.0.1088 is hard to find, but thanks to AstroSkipper it is now available to try: https://www.mediafire.com/file/5b41tc67a29vvbm/KFA_19.0.0.1088.7z/file

That was probably a wise choice! I have held my tongue about Panda for a long time because my own dreadful experience with it was several years ago, and frankly because XP diehards might have very little choice in the near future. But since criticism of antivirus software that one doesn’t actually use is such a popular pastime at MSFN, I think it’s time for me to speak out against Panda. I installed Panda Free near the end of 2014 (which is evidently quite recently in terms of “XP time”). Only paid versions were supposed to include a firewall, but Panda Free nevertheless installed a nonfunctional firewall, which I thought was terribly amateurish. I should’ve gotten rid of it right then and there, but unfortunately I did not. On March 11, 2015, something quite remarkable happened: Panda attacked itself! I was on my PC at the time. I recall opening Snipping Tool to take a screenshot of a message that Panda had deleted something - at which point Panda attacked Snipping Tool! I wouldn’t blame anyone for doubting my story, but it wasn’t just me: It was a worldwide debacle for Panda users! https://www.theregister.com/2015/03/11/panda_antivirus_update_self_pwn/ You people think an antivirus is bad if it slows down your browsing or throws an occasional false positive? You ain’t seen nothing unless you were using Panda on March 11, 2015! I will grant that the company made a good effort to reverse the damage - but there were still system files in Panda’s “Lost and Found” folder after the fix. In the end, I performed a factory restore, thereby eliminating Panda’s junkware once and for all!

That was most definitely Norton’s reputation in 2008. Of course it didn’t take much to slow down the hardware that most people had in 2008, which was a major reason for Vista’s poor reception. I bought a high-spec Vista x86 system that spring, but nevertheless I went with the consensus by removing the free trial of Norton and installing AVG Free. My opinions about antivirus products have actually changed considerably during the last 15 years - but there’s an old guy at another forum who has used nothing but Norton for 32 years.

I am aware that Malwarebytes 4.x versions have achieved better test scores in recent years, but I’m not sure how that is relevant to Windows XP (or Vista), since you are stuck with 5-year-old version 3.5.1 and hoping they won’t stop providing definitions signed with insecure SHA-1. I’m beginning to think in terms of blocking your content.

October 2018 seems appropriate (not much point in looking at more recent tests since none of these products support XP/Vista anymore). I never used Kaspersky, but that doesn’t mean I never got any false positives. Note that Malwarebytes Premium got the lowest score by far: https://www.av-test.org/en/antivirus/home-windows/windows-10/october-2018/

My apologies! I looked that up while MSFN was unavailable and your spelling is indeed considered correct in the UK (although not in my small country of 334 million people). I would’ve edited my post if I could’ve, but it’s rather late now. I have no particular axe to grind with respect to Norton (or Kaspersky). Sure, I’ve seen tests by independent labs showing that Norton (along with Kaspersky) was among the most effective antivirus products in the world; but if XP users at MSFN would rather not hear that, then I won’t mention it again.

@AstroSkipper Your opinions are already well-known to those who care to read. I get the impression that the list on page 1 of your new thread will never include any well-known antivirus that you personally dislike, although it already includes various firewalls etc. that no one else ever heard of - i.e. not so much a Windows XP list as an AstroSkipper list. That’s precisely why I prefer to post in this old thread, where you are not the OP. Norton is no longer part of Symantec (which is now focused exclusively on profitable enterprise solutions like your erstwhile favorite WiseVector). Instead, Norton is now part of Gen Digital, an international conglomerate that includes the Avast, AVG and Avira brands. (BullGuard has been discontinued, and its license holders were given Norton licenses.) You already used the expression “disenfranchised” just 6 posts earlier. How many years has it been since you actually used Norton - or are you merely repeating someone else’s opinion? I was hoping that we might hear from someone who actually used Norton recently - but of course this thread will probably grow several pages longer before such a rare bird comes flying by. I already knew that you have a lifetime license (note correct spelling please). It does not follow that other XP (or Vista) users would be well-advised to purchase a Malwarebytes Premium license in June 2023 or thereafter. I would imagine that a Norton license could be used on a newer OS, but Windows 10 and 11 have a very good antivirus built in - which is precisely why there have been so many mergers in the antivirus industry lately.

That person later posted, “Norton says my Protection updates are ‘current.’” How is that relevant to Windows XP? Because Norton users running Windows XP or Vista were moved to Maintenance Mode at the same time (5 years ago). EOL for Norton versions 22.14 and earlier was announced 3 years ago, but the final Maintenance Mode version 25.15.5 for Windows XP was actually more recent than that. If it is still receiving definition updates, then it is every bit as “supported” as Avast 18.8, Malwarebytes 3.5.1, and another well-known antivirus that I won’t mention by name because the Gestapo would feel compelled to attack me as always. Norton’s support website appears to be in disarray at this time, so the links I have provided all lead to old Norton Community posts. AstroSkipper has already expressed his disinterest in Norton, and my own experience was limited to removal of a “free trial” from my Vista PC long ago. Would I encourage someone running XP to purchase a Norton license in 2023? No - but I feel exactly the same way about Malwarebytes Premium! I would seek out a free solution because definitions are liable to be cut off most any time now anyway. I should mention that Norton already threatened to cut off definitions on February 28, 2021, but later changed its mind. If anyone reading this is actually using Norton on XP (or even Vista, which would be the same version), please speak up!

I think D.Draker is largely correct about the United States, and NotHereToPlayGames exaggerates America’s diversity. I have lived in suburbs my entire life, and the biggest city I ever lived near was Houston. The car is absolutely essential to our suburban way of life, and also for those living in the countryside. Without a car, you might as well be in a desert. I suppose a car might be more trouble than it’s worth in Manhattan, since there’s no place to park anyway. I was fortunate enough to visit Europe one summer when I was much younger. The only subway I ever rode on was the Paris Metro. I traveled by train from city to city. (I took a few train trips in the US when I was younger, but visitors from Europe had better not plan on traveling by train here.) I should’ve sought out public transportation in Rome instead of walking 10 km from the Forum to the Vatican, but I was young enough to survive that mistake. (I even missed the Sistine Chapel because the sun was going down when I emerged from St. Peter’s.) The European country that was most similar to the US was certainly (western) Germany, with its multi-lane autobahns. But even in Germany, you could travel by train and use public transportation to get around in the cities. It’s actually ridiculous that D.Draker has pegged me as an “enemy of NATO,” but I would rather block his blind hostility than attempt to have a conversation about it. Technically speaking, legacy versions of Kaspersky are an option for XP and Vista, and even seem to be compatible with the extended kernel, which appears to break various other legacy AV products. As I have mentioned many times before, I never used Kaspersky myself, and no longer use Windows Vista for that matter. If MSFN exists for loyal NATO members only, then perhaps forum rules should prohibit any discussion of Kaspersky? In any case, I do not accept the condemnation of D.Draker! But if I ever insulted his English (and it seems like I probably did), then I apologize for that, because it is quite good actually. Yes, Mental Health Awareness Month is ending today. Hopefully this 14-page thread will also come to an end.