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

[AstroSkipper]

On 1/23/2026 at 4:37 PM, AstroSkipper said:

Here are some facts about the sizes of SUPERAntiSpyware's virus definition files from 2024 to 2026:

SASDEFINITIONS.EXE 210,345,304 bytes 07.07.2024
SASDEFINITIONS.EXE 214,737,232 bytes 27.05.2025
SASDEFINITIONS.EXE 353,800,400 bytes 23.01.2026

The virus definition file SASDEFINITIONS.EXE has increased by 4,391,928 bytes from July 2024 to May 2025, which is a normal increase of approx. 2% within 10 months. From May 2025 to January 2026, however, it increased by 139,063,168 bytes.  This is an unbelievable increase of approx. 65% within only 8 months and definitely a no-go.   The file has become totally bloated for whatever reason. Now, I finally know why the download takes much longer time than before, apart from the catastrophic download speed on their update server, which is used by the programme.

Interestingly, and as if this company had read this post, the following happened:

SASDEFINITIONS.EXE 345.6 MB 07.02.2026, but then
SASDEFINITIONS.EXE 229.4 MB 15.05.2026

Unfortunately, the virus definition file SASDEFINITIONS.EXE was inflated again in July 2026:

SASDEFINITIONS.EXE 305.8 MB 26.07.2026

Very strange what on earth they’re up to there.   

My guess is that the definition files and their installer are compiled extremely sloppily. 

Edited Monday at 12:37 PM by AstroSkipper

[Dave-H]

1 hour ago, AstroSkipper said:

Which version are you currently running? 22.03.05? And do they still offer a more recent one for paid customers? And what about their support? Have you got any reply that Panda Dome is working again on Windows XP? 🤔

I'm running 22.03.05.
There is a more recent version 23, but it appears that isn't XP compatible, as if you try to install it on XP, you actually get 22.03.05 instead.
I had no reply from the direct Panda support people responding to the report forms I sent them, which didn't surprise me at all!
Nothing from the people at AnyTech365 either, which did slightly surprise me as they seemed to be pretty good.
They had said that they would let me know about ongoing support for XP.

[AstroSkipper]

14 minutes ago, Dave-H said:

I had no reply from the direct Panda support people responding to the report forms I sent them, which didn't surprise me at all!
Nothing from the people at AnyTech365 either, which did slightly surprise me as they seemed to be pretty good.

That’s exactly what I expected. What’s the point of AnyTech365 having friendly staff if the customer is still left in the dark? 👀

[newl71]

On 7/26/2026 at 10:36 AM, AstroSkipper said:

I have no clue what you are talking about. Could you please explain a bit more detailed what you wanted to say? And what does the abbreviation SRP mean? And which gui do you refer to? 🤔🤔🤔

application firewall, Windows XP gpo mechanism for preventing run untrusted exe files

[Tangy]

@Dave-H With exclusions in place, Panda has been working flawlessly. Tonight I'll remove exclusions to see what happens.

Keep you posted.

[Tangy]

@Dave-HYes , I do confirm your findings. Panda is fully functional !

PS : Let us monitor the situation for a few days to make sure that this is the case.

Edited 6 hours ago by Tangy
PS

[AstroSkipper]

Good news here about Panda Dome on Windows XP! Perhaps the appeal did have some effect after all, and many users have contacted support. Whether that’s a good thing or not, this news comes too late for me as I am using now Comodo Antivirus. It has a real offline scanner with a huge definitions database contrary to Panda.

[AstroSkipper]

MSFN’s gone completely haywire and is now even posting multiple times. It’s been nothing but glitches for weeks.

Edited 4 hours ago by AstroSkipper

[Dave-H]

I've raised this with xper.
Apparently it's bots attacking the server.
Using something like (dare I say it) Cloudflare would probably prevent this, but that would cost a lot of money, which we haven't got.
😟

[Dave-H]

4 hours ago, Tangy said:

@Dave-HYes , I do confirm your findings. Panda is fully functional !

PS : Let us monitor the situation for a few days to make sure that this is the case.

Thanks @Tangy!

Good to know that Panda seems to be OK for you as well now.
Whether it will keep working on XP long-term remains to be seen, of course, but if you have a paid version, it seems to be about the only option for XP which includes real-time scanning, albeit online rather than local, plus a firewall and protection against dodgy websites.
Let's hope it keeps going!