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

[FranceBB]

On 9/16/2023 at 11:39 AM, AstroSkipper said:

I really mean all the manufacturers that still support Windows XP (and also Windows Vista) in any form in these days, such as Malwarebytes, Panda, Avast, MicroWorld Technologies Inc, AVG (actually Avast again), Qihoo 360, Glarysoft, and so on.  

I think a thank you for that to them all was long overdue. 

Yep, a huge thank you indeed, but perhaps we don't have much time to "celebrate"...

Speaking of Avast, they recently phased out version 11 of their antivirus, which follows the deprecation of other, older versions. They seem to be keeping the trend running of serving 9 years of support per product.

The same happened to all the other products, all the way back to some of the famous ones like version 4.8 released in 2008 which was the last Win98 compatible version, which got retired in 2017, again, after 9 years.

With a simple calculation and knowing that version 18 was the last XP compatible one, we can expect Windows XP support to last 'till 2027. We're currently on the second half of 2023 and on our way to 2024. This means that, unless the recent Avast merger changes something, we still have effectively 3 years and a few months to enjoy the support with the definitions update and the same is true for AVG (which is Avast with a different frontend). 

[AstroSkipper]

2 hours ago, FranceBB said:

Yep, a huge thank you indeed, but perhaps we don't have much time to "celebrate"...

I thought that should be said at some point, no matter how long these manufacturers continue to support Windows XP.  
And as for Avast, frankly, I am not really a fan of it anymore, and certainly not of AVG. I would therefore be able to live with the loss... 

Edited September 17, 2023 by AstroSkipper
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[AstroSkipper]

2 hours ago, FranceBB said:

The same happened to all the other products, all the way back to some of the famous ones like version 4.8 released in 2008 which was the last Win98 compatible version, which got retired in 2017, again, after 9 years.

You are absolutely right! Avast Antivirus 4.8 was a version I liked very much, and it is even today installed on my Windows ME partition which still exists only for historical reasons. And as usual in those days, Avast was lightweight and low on resources. How can a manufacturer get so much wrong, considering versions like 18.8 or the very latest? 

Edited September 17, 2023 by AstroSkipper
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[FranceBB]

13 hours ago, AstroSkipper said:

You are absolutely right! Avast Antivirus 4.8 was a version I liked very much, and it is even today installed on my Windows ME partition which still exists only for historical reasons. And as usual in those days, Avast was lightweight and low on resources. How can a manufacturer get so much wrong, considering versions like 18.8 or the very latest? 

I know, right?!  

And yeah I still love 4.8 even though it doesn't get definitions updates any longer. It is still installed on my Windows98SE which, just like your Windows ME, only exists for historical reasons: i.e it was my very first PC whose PATA HDD has now been turned into a VM...

Edited September 18, 2023 by FranceBB

[Vistapocalypse]

17 hours ago, AstroSkipper said:

How can a manufacturer get so much wrong, considering versions like 18.8

Perhaps the manufacturer assumed (quite correctly) that most PC users had more capable hardware by 2018. Support for Windows XP is one thing, but optimal performance on 20-year-old hardware is evidently something else entirely. Whenever I read your condemnations of Avast 18.8, it’s hard to believe that you are writing about the same product I formerly used on Vista without any real complaints. The explanation must be that my Vista hardware was manufactured merely 16 years ago (alas, it died so young), and had a multicore processor with 3GB RAM. If any readers happen to be running XP on more modern hardware (or Vista without some extended kernel that apparently breaks most antivirus products), then I would recommend Avast Free 18.8! (I find it hard to believe that AVG 18.8 with the same engine could be markedly worse, but Avast was my choice so I have no ammunition with which to debate AstroSkipper on that point.)

[AstroSkipper]

If a user owns a computer equipped with more capable hardware, why should Windows XP be used then? Simple rule: more modern hardware, more modern operation system. I am actually here to support real Windows XP users to inform them about security programmes. And this OS is ideal for old, weak computers. There are many people outside who want to protect their computers and have to use Windows XP due to very old, weak hardware for whatever reasons. People with powerful machines can do what they want to do. Whether it makes sense or not, I leave undecided. I have given my opinion on this often enough here in different threads. And if someone wants or needs to throttle the performance of their computer, then it makes perfect sense to install Avast.  In any case, all my articles and investigations are meant to spread information including my experiences whether they are positive or negative. One thing is crystal clear. The mature readers can decide themselves what they want to use as I stated long before.

Edited September 20, 2023 by AstroSkipper

[FranceBB]

1 hour ago, Vistapocalypse said:

without some extended kernel that apparently breaks most antivirus products

Speaking of which, the latest version of One Core API for XP x86 supports Avast 18.8 as @Skulltrail fixed it.

AVG 18.8 is untested, though, but I would be very surprised if it was broken.

Edited September 18, 2023 by FranceBB

[AstroSkipper]

On 9/15/2023 at 1:03 PM, AstroSkipper said:

@George King As I don't use Windows XP 64 bit, it would be great if you can do additionally some tests under this OS. Maybe, a fully updated Windows XP 64 bit is necessary to get Panda Antivirus Free installed. I performed a deeper research via Google and found a lot of similar reports about .NET Framework 4 problems under different OSes when installing Panda Antivirus Free. In Windows 7, for example, a system patch seems to be necessary if the .NET Framework 4 error occurs. Anyway! One thing is totally clear. Any form of help  in testing is very welcome and much appreciated. 

Greetings, AstroSkipper 

Hello @George King! Any news for us? Although I am not a Windows XP 64 bit user, I am interested to hear whether you have made any progress in testing. Did you already install Windows XP 64 bit on your testing machine? 

Greetings, AstroSkipper 

Edited September 18, 2023 by AstroSkipper

[mina7601]

1 hour ago, FranceBB said:

AVG 18.8 is untested, though, but I would be very surprised if it was broken.

Fortunately, AVG 18.8 is supported as well.

Edited September 18, 2023 by mina7601

[NullEntity]

God forsaken shame about wisevectorx not gonna lie it looked seriously promising i used to use it myself quite often

[AstroSkipper]

On 9/18/2023 at 8:29 PM, NullEntity said:

God forsaken shame about wisevectorx not gonna lie it looked seriously promising i used to use it myself quite often

Yep, I used it, too. It is a pity that a project like WiseVector StopX was simply shut down. But I had the impression that the developers only wanted to get their hands on data in order to launch a commercial product on the market and earn money.  The users were more like guinea pigs to feed their artificial intelligence (AI) they had implemented into WiseVector StopX.

Edited September 20, 2023 by AstroSkipper
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[Dave-H]

Off-topic posts removed, again.

[AstroSkipper]

As previously reported, the virus definitions update for Avast Free Antivius 2015 version 10.4.2233.1299 will be discontinued at the end of this summer. This applies to all versions from 9 to 11. See here:
https://blog.avast.com/virus-definition-updates-eol
Therefore, I recommend for all those, who are interested in this version or want to use it later, to download the latest Avast VPS update for versions 9 to 11. Here is the download link: https://install.avcdn.net/ivps9x/vpsupd.exe
At the moment, it is still being updated. Therefore, check regularly until the last version is delivered! 

Cheers, AstroSkipper 

Edited September 21, 2023 by AstroSkipper
Update of content

[AstroSkipper]

33 minutes ago, Cocodile said:

2 hours ago, Vistapocalypse said:

For those with SSE-only processors (which is the only practical reason why someone might still be interested in Avast 10.4), my recommendation would be Kaspersky Free 18.0.0.405:

Of possible interest to @WSC4 and others running XP SP2 x64: Another member has told me privately that Kaspersky 18 works on that platform! Not surprisingly, that member feels intimidated by the anti-Kaspersky goons who harass and ridicule whoever they please at MSFN, and therefore prefers to remain anonymous. (Those accounts on my Ignored Users list need not reply because I will never read your posts.)

I think the Windows XP community owes a very special “Thank You” to Kaspersky, which was somehow omitted by Astro in his Saturday post offering thanks to various antivirus vendors (including two Chinese companies).

I think AstroSkipper did not mention Kaspersky in his thank-you post, because the security concerns that have already been discussed a thousand times make any further consideration or recommendation of Kaspersky security programmes, even under Windows XP, impossible. And it doesn't help when you sing the praises of Kaspersky here

You are absolutely right! That's what I think. Thank you for clarification! 

[UCyborg]

On 9/21/2023 at 2:27 PM, Vistapocalypse said:

For those with SSE-only processors (which is the only practical reason why someone might still be interested in Avast 10.4), my recommendation would be Kaspersky Free 18.0.0.405:

Of possible interest to @WSC4 and others running XP SP2 x64: Another member has told me privately that Kaspersky 18 works on that platform! Not surprisingly, that member feels intimidated by the anti-Kaspersky goons who harass and ridicule whoever they please at MSFN, and therefore prefers to remain anonymous. (Those accounts on my Ignored Users list need not reply because I will never read your posts.)

I think the Windows XP community owes a very special “Thank You” to Kaspersky, which was somehow omitted by Astro in his Saturday post offering thanks to various antivirus vendors (including two Chinese companies).

I can confirm Kaspersky 18, obtained from https://products.s.kaspersky-labs.com/, installs and works fine on my XP SP2 x64 installation, although it was a bit glitchy after initial installation, couldn't add exclusions, it complained about insufficient memory, despite there being about 2 GB free, nothing logging off and back on to Windows couldn't resolve and it didn't recur after reboot either. Definitions are updatable, Web-Antivirus module seems to work - two random malicious URL blocked:

Also pulled 4 random recent samples that were blocked after extracting (ZIPs are encrypted):

https://bazaar.abuse.ch/sample/01e79ebb5c2b318f0c68c11912b987255ae55662acca4fbb67c958828107f5a7/
https://bazaar.abuse.ch/sample/6238893de251eb7a3b61b171129dfc45afb8de90aaebe85da8e945ae1e095be3/
https://bazaar.abuse.ch/sample/22b66f492bdc66158e2cd53bd9525c49a7b061798cfb6ff6158b69869c1e4d61/
https://bazaar.abuse.ch/sample/36ffe3d8a0b23ce2d6af158c493daf1daf6667a4c4b0d4a4ea017bd40f748893/

One might notice it uses a lot of DLL files, many of them not rebased and even though some are, chances for conflicts are high and hence need to be relocated at runtime is high, so some extra megabytes are consumed since XP doesn't have the ability to manage them smartly like newer OS, at least under the condition right flags are turned on in the specific header, which in this case they are.

It requires .NET Framework 4, specifically just the Client Profile, designated as Microsoft .NET Framework 4 Client Profile under Add or Remove Programs. It installs it automatically if missing.

Edited September 22, 2023 by UCyborg
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