[9x/Me] Surviving Without a Virus Scanner

[cluberti]

Somehow this topic was closed - and in my opinion, should not have been (forum seems to think I did it too, but I was on vacation.... wierd). Re-opening, but let's keep it clean and mature, as always.

[Dude112]

Maybe someone accidently closed it....

This is an interesting thread with ALOT OF GOOD POINTS!!

I hope you had a good vacation cluberti

[dlsayremn]

This was posted by ojn at TechGuy's 31July2009 at 04:38PM on thread about free AV's that still were supported for the old systems. I checked it out. It is real.

Avast has added the following notice without much announcement.

See: http://www.avast.com/eng/system-requirements-avast-home.html

"Note: The operating systems Windows 95/98/Me/NT4 will be supported until

the end of 2009."

Miltibooter: Thanksfor pointing out problem with url. Corrected it.

Edited August 1, 2009 by dlsayremn

[RetroOS]

Perhaps this latest Avast News listing has something to do with that?

Vince Steckler to Lead Global Expansion of ALWIL Software

ALWIL Software, the developers of avast!—probably the world’s most popular antivirus product—today announced that Vince Steckler has joined the company as CEO. Previously, Vince served as senior vice-president of consumer sales at Symantec, the world’s largest producer of security software.

The name Symantec kind of jumps out and bites you...

[Multibooter]

"Note: The operating systems Windows 95/98/Me/NT4 will be supported until

the end of 2009."

The corrected links is http://www.avast.com/eng/system-requirements-avast-home.html

[ojn]

Hello:

Thanks for posting the link properly as http://www.avast.com/eng/system-requirements-avast-home.html .

That's how I originally posted it on TechGuy's forum, but their forum shortened the display (although it did work correctly if clicked on over there.)

Cheers

[noguru]

Perhaps this latest Avast News listing has something to do with that?

Vince Steckler to Lead Global Expansion of ALWIL Software

ALWIL Software, the developers of avast!—probably the world’s most popular antivirus product—today announced that Vince Steckler has joined the company as CEO. Previously, Vince served as senior vice-president of consumer sales at Symantec, the world’s largest producer of security software.

The name Symantec kind of jumps out and bites you...

No, it's really old news that Avast will stop supporting win9x at the end of this year. In the malware section of this forum you will find old topics about this subject. The decision to hire Steckler was made later. And even when it was not, why do people think that the new CEO of Avast is bothered with the interests of Symantec? (And maybe he wanted to become CEO for a decade already but never got the chance with Symantec and now he's going to show them that they were wrong. Very very wrong )

The most simple and logical reason to drop win9x support is that its user base has dropped under 1% and is still declining. Sure Linux and Mac don't have a huge user base as well but these are not dying. Everything comes to an end, good things too.

Edited August 1, 2009 by noguru

[dlsayremn]

Multibooter: Thanks for pointing out problem with url. Corrected it in my post.

[dlsayremn]

noguru,

First I heard about. Reason I copied ojn's post here. Have been lucky so far (cross fingers), so don't visit Malware very often unless I suggest someone go there.

[cdoublejj]

SON OF.... man i bet it's that symantec A-hole guy's fault. [no not really] avast is nice and it sucks that it won't support 98 couldn't you just update the database and not the program it's self?

Edited August 1, 2009 by cdoublejj

[Guest sucahyo]

New malware or virus can not infect Windows 98 anymore. They rely on 2000/XP/Vista/Seven architecture now. If you disable autorun and then use common icon for exe file, you will not get auto infected from USB or network.

Here is what I use:

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\DefaultIcon]

@="%SystemRoot%\\system32\\url.dll,0"

[soek]

after japan, i got influenca?!

without firewall.

[Laser98IX]

I use Win98SE everyday, I have been since 1999 when I upgraded from Win3.11 because of the Millennium issue, and my solution to malware probably isn't that unique.

Sure, I've been infected a few times,

• from a customer diskette that had a boot sector virus on it
  • I accidentally left the thing in the drive when I turned it on next time
    

  [*]from software that I downloaded from a site I *thought* I trusted,

  [*]from a hard-drive that I bought used but didn't check,

  [*]and from an open port attack that was very hard to trace,

but I've been fortunate because I keep multiple backups on different machines.

My solution to minimize or completely eliminate my exposure was to stop using my '98 machines for browsing the internet. Instead I run a Linux "Live CD" O/S when I want to check my email, download software, and communicate with the world. Someone might be able to follow my activities and load a Java-script bug on my machine in RAM, but it's impossible to write to a CD-ROM disk, so my O/S is stable, boots clean each time I power-up, and I have a distinct separation of machines so my valuable hardware and software isn't affected by some mental ant who has nothing better to do with their time.

I still use multiple '98 machines everyday, and I recently installed '98SE on a screaming shoe-box computer that I got second-hand. I paid lots of money for some very expensive and useful software designed for '98 for the last 15 or 20 years, and I'll be damned if I'm gonna let some jerk-wad force me to stop using something that works just fine.

Now, if someone could write a Win98SE "Live CD" I'd be able to run all of my software and not be affected by malware.

Okay -- I'm all better now.

Edited July 17, 2012 by Laser98IX

[rloew]

I use Win98SE everyday, I have been since 1999 when I upgraded from Win3.11 because of the Millennium issue, and my solution to malware probably isn't that unique.

Sure, I've been infected a few times,

• from a customer diskette that had a boot sector virus on it
  • I accidentally left the thing in the drive when I turned it on next time
    

  [*]from software that I downloaded from a site I *thought* I trusted,

  [*]from a hard-drive that I bought used but didn't check,

  [*]and from an open port attack that was very hard to trace,

but I've been fortunate because I keep multiple backups on different machines.

My solution to minimize or completely eliminate my exposure was to stop using my '98 machines for browsing the internet. Instead I run a Linux "Live CD" O/S when I want to check my email, download software, and communicate with the world. Someone might be able to follow my activities and load a Java-script bug on my machine in RAM, but it's impossible to write to a CD-ROM disk, so my O/S is stable, boots clean each time I power-up, and I have a distinct separation of machines so my valuable hardware and software isn't affected by some mental ant who has nothing better to do with their time.

I still use multiple '98 machines everyday, and I recently installed '98SE on a screaming shoe-box computer that I got second-hand. I paid lots of money for some very expensive and useful software designed for '98 for the last 15 or 20 years, and I'll be damned if I'm gonna let some jerk-wad force me to stop using something that works just fine.

Now, if someone could write a Win98SE "Live CD" I'd be able to run all of my software and not be affected by malware.

Okay -- I'm all better now.

You can make a "Live CD" for Windows 98SE but it has to be customized to the particular machine. I have already done it.

[jaclaz]

Now, if someone could write a Win98SE "Live CD" I'd be able to run all of my software and not be affected by malware.

There used to be a builder for one, from Qualystem, see here:

http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=12326

But you can make one allright following the various links, (of course you will need to use EXTENSIVELY the Wayback Machine) example:

http://web.archive.org/web/20051229215909/http://www.lachiesadicristo.it/w98cd/page1.htm

Or using the Winimize approach:

http://reboot.pro/forum/53/

http://reboot.pro/3835/

In the meantime a nice little thingy has come out, but if I recall correctly there were no takers to experiment with it :

http://reboot.pro/2293/

jaclaz