Antimalware, firewall, and other security programs for Windows XP working in 2023 and hopefully beyond

[Dave-H]

Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice famously said!

I will investigate and report back.
I will stick with the portable versions, as they will be easier to clean off the system if I decide not to proceed.
I'm hoping that installing RogueKiller/Adlice Protect will not cause problems with it running side by side with Malwarebytes, as I don't want to uninstall that until I know I've got a viable replacement.

 

[AstroSkipper]

56 minutes ago, Dave-H said:

I'm hoping that installing RogueKiller/Adlice Protect will not cause problems with it running side by side with Malwarebytes, as I don't want to uninstall that until I know I've got a viable replacement.

I didn't notice any problems while installing or uninstalling. About running for a longer time with real-time protection I can't say anything but the portable installation can't produce any compatibility issues. BTW, my Malwarebytes Premium 3.5.1 installation still exists on my Windows XP partition.

[Dave-H]

OK, update time!

I installed the portable version of version 16.5.4.0 and that seemed to work fine, although with the 'Protection not available in portable mode' notice.
I then tried the installer version, which seemed to install fine, but with the warning 'the service is not running'.
I looked and found the RogueKillerSvc.exe file in the program's folder.
Running it seemed to work OK, but I now have 'Protection not available with this operating system'!
It seems to do manual scans OK, so I don't know what that actually means.
Of course there is no real-time protection as it's the free version.

[Dave-H]

Actually, forget the bit about the service, I just needed to reboot!
The service is now running, but I still have the 'Protection not available with this operating system' message.
Perhaps I should try version 15?

[AstroSkipper]

4 minutes ago, Dave-H said:

Actually, forget the bit about the service, I just needed to reboot!
The service is now running, but I still have the 'Protection not available with this operating system' message.
Perhaps I should try version 15?

Did you activate the 30 days trial? 

[AstroSkipper]

BTW, I contacted the Adlice support and filed a request in terms of XP-compatibility. They opened a support ticket. We will see what comes out of it.

[Dave-H]

I've now activated the 30-day trial, which I had forgotten about!

Unfortunately, although it has activated other disabled functions, there's still no real-time protection.

As you can see, the protection controls are still greyed out.

Do you think it's worth trying version 15?
I suspect they will just say that version 16 is no longer XP compatible.

One other thing I noticed is that if I have it set to run at start-up, there is quite a long annoying pause in the start-up sequence, which is not good!

 

[AstroSkipper]

1 hour ago, Dave-H said:

Do you think it's worth trying version 15?
I suspect they will just say that version 16 is no longer XP compatible.

When I checked the Adlice homepage via the Wayback Machine, I noticed they started in 2025 to announce compatibility notes with Windows 7 as minimum requirements. All the years before, there were no such notes on their homepage. Therefore, I think the 15.x.x.x versions should still be compatible with Windows XP. But trial and error is the best way. I would start with version 15.19.2 which is the latest 15 version. We will see what they are inclined to respond to my request. 

Edited yesterday at 08:50 PM by AstroSkipper
Update of content

[Dave-H]

OK, I've been trying now with version 15.
I tried installing it over version 16, and it installed, but then immediately updated itself to version 16 again!
Once I'd properly uninstalled 16 and tried again, it has stuck, but of course is constantly nagging me to update it.

Still no real-time protection though.
The service is loading fine, but instead I'm now getting 'Driver not loaded' instead.

[VistaLover]

23 hours ago, AstroSkipper said:

Bad news about eScanAV Anti-Virus Toolkit (MWAV)! Their free antimalware scanner can't be updated anymore. I also tried to manually do it with their (weekly) offline virus database updater but this doesn't work either. Here is a quotation from their website https://www.escanav.com/en/mwav-tools/download-free-antivirus-toolkit.asp:

... Not only that, but the "DOWNLOAD" button on the linked website is NO LONGER clickable  ; even worse, the download link you had previously archived, 

https://www.escanav.com/en/antivirus-downloadlink/downloadcounter.asp?pcode=MWAV&src=english_dwn&type=alter

now returns: 

Quote

You do not have permission to view this directory or page.

... What a total scam !  

[AstroSkipper]

4 minutes ago, VistaLover said:

... Not only that, but the "DOWNLOAD" button on the linked website is NO LONGER clickable  ; even worse, the download link you had previously archived, 

https://www.escanav.com/en/antivirus-downloadlink/downloadcounter.asp?pcode=MWAV&src=english_dwn&type=alter

now returns: 

... What a total scam !  

What is much worse is that an existing installation is rendered unusable by updating the signatures. That is an outrage.

[AstroSkipper]

50 minutes ago, Dave-H said:

OK, I've been trying now with version 15.
I tried installing it over version 16, and it installed, but then immediately updated itself to version 16 again!
Once I'd properly uninstalled 16 and tried again, it has stuck, but of course is constantly nagging me to update it.

Still no real-time protection though.
The service is loading fine, but instead I'm now getting 'Driver not loaded' instead.

Try the first 15 version installer version that was 15.0.0! If it works, try a more recent. If not. try the latest 14 version that was 14.8.6. If this doesn't work either, try the first 14 version installer version that was 14.0.0.16. I wouldn't go any deeper. In any case, this is an issue they fixed in several versions. Check their changelog!

Edited 23 hours ago by AstroSkipper
Update of content

[Dave-H]

Already done that!

I'm now going to try version 15.8.0 which has the most recent changelog entry which mentions XP.
"Fixed issues on Windows XP".
So presumably that version did work!

[AstroSkipper]

5 minutes ago, Dave-H said:

Already done that!

I'm now going to try version 15.8.0 which has the most recent changelog entry which mentions XP.
"Fixed issues on Windows XP".
So presumably that version did work!

I prefer the principle of interval nesting when testing programme versions for compatibility.

Edited 23 hours ago by AstroSkipper

[AstroSkipper]

10 hours ago, AstroSkipper said:

And today, I have installed Panda Antivirus Free 18.07.04 from 2019 for testing purposes. Let's see how this version performs. 

Here is a short interim report. Panda Antivirus Free 18.07.04 was also installed without any problems and has been running flawlessly so far. Let's see how long that lasts.