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

[Milkinis]

46 minutes ago, Cocodile said:

Thank you for the confirmation of Avast being a spy tool! 

https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/is-avast-safe/46519/

[AstroSkipper]

Asking Kaspersky whether his competitor Avast is safe. Nice joke!  I will soon ask the chef of a restaurant I visit if his food is good. 

[Milkinis]

1 hour ago, AstroSkipper said:

Asking Kaspersky whether his competitor Avast is safe. Nice joke!

https://www.avast.com/c-is-kaspersky-safe

[Cocodile]

"Senator Wyden Asks Avast Antivirus Why it Sells Users' Browsing Data"

https://www.vice.com/en/article/v744v9/senator-ron-wyden-asks-avast-selling-users-browsing-data

Edited June 29, 2023 by Cocodile

[Cocodile]

And now for those who use, the old, long abandoned Avast Antivirus Free 18.8, which is the last compatible version for Windows XP.

It's not only insecure, it is very bloated, slowing down computers, I had a terrible experience with it on my XP era notebook Toshiba Satellite A50

it was not possible to uninstall it, so I had to reformat the HDD using the original DVD for my XP system.

Their own "tool" failed to do it and glitched out the whole PC to the point of no return!

Is there any other AV which fails to even uninstall easily?

https://forums.tomsguide.com/threads/solved-avast-is-impossible-to-uninstall-solved.443038/

Edited June 29, 2023 by Cocodile
linked

[AstroSkipper]

36 minutes ago, Cocodile said:

And now for those who use, the old, long abandoned Avast Antivirus Free 18.8, which is the last compatible version for Windows XP.

It's not only insecure, it is very bloated, slowing down computers, I had a terrible experience with it on my XP era notebook Toshiba Satellite A50

it was not possible to uninstall it, so I had to reformat the HDD using the original DVD for my XP system.

Their own "tool" failed to do it and glitched out the whole PC to the point of no return!

Hello @Cocodile! I have actually had similar experiences. Avast had always been a performance brake in my old PC. It is a terribly bloated programme package. When I tried to uninstall it a few months ago, the uninstall routine failed completely. Here you can read what I had to go through:

 

36 minutes ago, Cocodile said:

Is there any other AV which fails to even uninstall easily?

I had similar problems with Eset NOD32 Antivirus.

Edited June 29, 2023 by AstroSkipper

[Cocodile]

3 hours ago, AstroSkipper said:

Hello @Cocodile! I have actually had similar experiences. Avast had always been a performance brake in my old PC. It is a terribly bloated programme package. When I tried to uninstall it a few months ago, the uninstall routine failed completely. Here you can read what I had to go through:

 

I had similar problems with Eset NOD32 Antivirus.

Hello, @AstroSkipper, you're always very helpful, thanks for the warning! Just like the others already pointed out that issue, even on Dell forum:

"I'm trying to uninstall avast antivirus for the past 6 hours"

https://www.dell.com/community/Virus-Spyware/Can-t-uninstall-avast-antivirus/td-p/6103780

They suugest to use "AvastClear.exe", but no one tells how to uninstall that tool itself after that!

[AstroSkipper]

1 minute ago, Cocodile said:

Hello, @AstroSkipper, you're always very helpful, thanks for the warning! Just like the others already pointed out that issue, even on Dell forum:

"I'm trying to uninstall avast antivirus for the past 6 hours"

https://www.dell.com/community/Virus-Spyware/Can-t-uninstall-avast-antivirus/td-p/6103780

They suugest to use "AvastClear.exe", but no one tells how to uninstall that tool itself after that!

AvastClear does not need any installation. It is portable. So there is no need of uninstallation, either. But in my case, it didn't work, unfortunately. AvastClear is more of a joke. A company provides a special tool for uninstalling their products, but it fails, either. Very poor!

[Dixel]

On 6/28/2023 at 8:12 PM, Vistapocalypse said:

 Panda Security has been a wholly-owned subsidiary of American company WatchGuard for 3 years. This is somewhat encouraging I think.

https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/watchguard-completes-panda/

 I'm very glad to hear it!

[Dixel]

On 6/29/2023 at 8:03 AM, Vistapocalypse said:

Better get rid of 7-zip

"Turning of the antivirus worked for me. I have Kaspersky" I had the same issue with SP3 for XP 32 bit.

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/3fd669b8-32b2-44d5-9884-62391d4c2ce9/stage-3-100-then-removes-service-pack?forum=itprovistasp

 

Edited July 1, 2023 by Dixel

[Dixel]

6 hours ago, AstroSkipper said:

I had similar problems with Eset NOD32 Antivirus.

For me it always detected Sacred 2 Securom files as "virus", I couldn't play anything securom or starforce! (game copy protections) So I uninstalled it, also not without troubles,

I had to use a special uninstaller! 

[Dixel]

8 hours ago, AstroSkipper said:

8 hours ago, Cocodile said:

Is there any other AV which fails to even uninstall easily?

I had similar problems with Eset NOD32 Antivirus.

Product Update: Can't remove previous version of Eset..Cant uninstall from control panel

https://forum.eset.com/topic/14642-cant-uninstall-eset/

Upon Factory reset (!) I've been unable to fully uninstall ESET Nod32

https://forum.eset.com/topic/28568-upon-factory-reset-ive-been-unable-to-fully-uninstall-eset-nod32/

[Vistapocalypse]

4 hours ago, AstroSkipper said:

...When I tried to uninstall it [Avast] a few months ago, the uninstall routine failed completely. Here you can read what I had to go through:

I had similar problems with Eset NOD32 Antivirus.

I can’t speak about the difficulty of uninstalling Avast because I never uninstalled it (18.8 is still on my broken-down Vista machine), and of course ESET is no longer an option. I saw numerous similar reports about the old AVG before Avast bought the company, including the removal tool not working, but I used to know a simple trick: Disable Self-Protection in Advanced settings before attempting to uninstall! This just might help with some other third-party AV products. Of course Microsoft Security Essentials uninstalled flawlessly (too bad it’s not an option for XP anymore), and Norton’s removal tool actually worked (my old PC came with Norton bundled).

[Milkinis]

1 hour ago, Vistapocalypse said:

 Of course Microsoft Security Essentials uninstalled flawlessly (too bad it’s not an option for XP anymore)

https://www.howtogeek.com/173291/goodbye-microsoft-security-essentials-microsoft-now-recommends-you-use-a-third-party-antivirus/

[AstroSkipper]

Of course, Avast Premier's self-protection was deactivated before I started the uninstall routine. Everyone who wants to completely remove an AV programme that has such a self-protection function should know this. But that did not help at all. It was the same with Eset NOD32 Antivirus in the past. The uninstall routine of Avast 18.8 was inadequately programmed and therefore rubbish. And AvastClear 18.8 is not much better.  The way I described in the article "Why I switched from Avast! to WiseVector StopX" I quoted above, on the other hand, worked excellently, but is not readily accessible and recommended for an inexperienced user. 

PS: The reader should not be confused by the title of my article. In the meanwhile, WiseVector StopX has been abandoned by the manufacturer and is therefore history.

Edited June 30, 2023 by AstroSkipper
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