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

[Skorpios]

I use Kaspersky Virus Removal Tool 2015 for offline scanning (still updated, ~260 MB download).
https://support.kaspersky.com/utility

Well, I scanned my registry for kasp and found 19 entries, most of them not related to the tool.

Now hold your breath... I have McAfee Enterprise 8.8 installed (still working on XP) but disabled, found 1465 entries and will probably find hundreds more related to McAfee if I scan for network associates, nai, intel and trellix... NSA in disguise but I don't care.

"You have no privacy. Get over it." — Scott McNealy, Sun Microsystems

BTW, there's only one way to uninstall McAfee...
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bKgf5PaBzyg

 

[Dixel]

10 hours ago, Skorpios said:

McAfee if I scan for network associates, nai, intel and trellix... NSA in disguise

Do you have any actual proof that McAfee works with NSA, or (maybe) it changes Windows system files like Kaspersky does?

[AstroSkipper]

11 hours ago, Skorpios said:

Now hold your breath... I have McAfee Enterprise 8.8 installed (still working on XP) but disabled, found 1465 entries and will probably find hundreds more related to McAfee if I scan for network associates, nai, intel and trellix... NSA in disguise but I don't care.

Regarding McAfee I never used it and TBH, I never liked it.  I tested it under Windows XP many, many years ago, only for a very short time. I was glad to get rid of it completely after testing. However, I am quite surprised that your installation is supposed to get definition updates as McAfee abandoned support for Windows XP long time ago. Are you sure that your Enterprise version (8.8 from 2013? ) still gets updates?   Personally, I don't believe it. That would be very unusual. 

Edited June 26, 2024 by AstroSkipper
Update of content

[NotHereToPlayGames]

I'm no fan of McAfee either.

But we do use McAfee Enterprise on the production floor on Windows XP Embedded.

I would have to travel to a factory floor but I myself don't doubt for a second that an Enterprise edition still receives updates on XP.

But the company pays for them via licensing contracts.

Edited June 26, 2024 by NotHereToPlayGames

[Skorpios]

9 hours ago, AstroSkipper said:

Regarding McAfee I never used it and TBH, I never liked it.  I tested it under Windows XP many, many years ago, only for a very short time. I was glad to get rid of it completely after testing. However, I am quite surprised that your installation is supposed to get definition updates as McAfee abandoned support for Windows XP long time ago. Are you sure that your Enterprise version (8.8 from 2013? ) still gets updates?   Personally, I don't believe it. That would be very unusual. 

You can't compare McAfee for the masses with the Enterprise version, it's like night and day. Light on resources, let's see what NHTPG has to say.

Once upon a time this old Thinkpad was part of a company domain. It was a spare computer we kept in a safe and when the company upgraded to WIN7 it wasn't on the list since it was decided that 4GB RAM was the minimum for WIN7. Our global IT department never asked for it so after about a year in the safe it "disappeared"...

You're partially correct about updating, when I removed it from the AD and made it a workgroup computer it couldn't connect to any of the ePO servers. It was a hardcoded list of servers BUT one of McAfees ePO servers was also on the list so it was still able to update the engine/databases but not upgrade the software. That worked until Intel bought McAfee 2010 and changed things but you were still able to manually download the databases. Then STG bought the Enterprise part of McAfee 2021 and Trellix is part of STG. You're still able to download the databases for this old version, believe it or not...

https://www.trellix.com/downloads/security-updates/
https://www.techspot.com/downloads/151-mcafee-superdat-update.html
https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/mcafee_virus_superdat_definitions.html

Spelling errors are my own and may be distributed under the GNU General Public License.

[Skorpios]

7 hours ago, NotHereToPlayGames said:

I'm no fan of McAfee either.

But we do use McAfee Enterprise on the production floor on Windows XP Embedded.

I would have to travel to a factory floor but I myself don't doubt for a second that an Enterprise edition still receives updates on XP.

But the company pays for them via licensing contracts.

What's your engine version? I have 5800 and think it was the last one for XP.

 

[NotHereToPlayGames]

5 minutes ago, Skorpios said:

Light on resources

Not in my opinion.  I hate hate hate hate hate antivirus of ANY KIND.

I've never compared our must-use-it corporate factory floor enterprise editions with non-enterprise 'cause you couldn't "pay me" to run antivirus on my computers.

"To each their own", of course.

I've tried several of Astro's suggestions and they're "okay", but not enough so for me to become a fan of running them in the background "all the time".

Again, "to each their own".

[AstroSkipper]

2 hours ago, Skorpios said:

You can't compare McAfee for the masses with the Enterprise version, it's like night and day. Light on resources, ...

21 hours ago, Skorpios said:

Now hold your breath... I have McAfee Enterprise 8.8 installed (still working on XP) but disabled, found 1465 entries and will probably find hundreds more related to McAfee if I scan for network associates, nai, intel and trellix...

An antimalware/antivirus programme which generates more than 1465 registry entries can't be really light on resources, IMHO. What do you actually mean by "light on resources"? What about disk, RAM and CPU load? Any values? 

[Skorpios]

14 hours ago, Dixel said:

Do you have any actual proof that McAfee works with NSA, or (maybe) it changes Windows system files like Kaspersky does?

No, but I'm 100% certain that company selling software to the Department of Defense are vetted inside out by the NSA and have a tight cooperation with them.

That's way above my level but I guess most AV/security programs are fiddling with files and has its own kerneldriver to protect its own files and hook into other files including system files.

[Skorpios]

2 hours ago, NotHereToPlayGames said:

Not in my opinion.  I hate hate hate hate hate antivirus of ANY KIND.

I've never compared our must-use-it corporate factory floor enterprise editions with non-enterprise 'cause you couldn't "pay me" to run antivirus on my computers.

"To each their own", of course.

I've tried several of Astro's suggestions and they're "okay", but not enough so for me to become a fan of running them in the background "all the time".

Again, "to each their own".

Ok, but at least you confirmed that your company still use McAfee Enterprise on XP computers.

As I wrote I have it installed but disabled which means crippled. I needed the space so about 700MB McAfee files are on an external drive and the services are disabled.

 

[Multibooter]

4 hours ago, NotHereToPlayGames said:

I hate hate hate hate hate antivirus of ANY KIND...  you couldn't "pay me" to run antivirus on my computers.

"To each their own", of course.

Yep. I agree, except for on-demand scanning of downloads from risky sources. I would even dare to say a majority of home users advanced enough to use WinXP in 2024 do not use malware protection components running in the background under WinXP.

[Multibooter]

4 hours ago, Skorpios said:

 I have it installed but disabled which means crippled. I needed the space so about 700MB McAfee files are on an external drive and the services are disabled.

 

The space used by my ancient version of Kaspersky, when updated with current signatures, jumps from about 100MB to 1.2GB, with 13,000 additional files. This is an issue because it would really bloat the size of my frequent partition backups, which I have kept since about 2008.

My regular partition backups, to avoid bloated backups, contain only the small ancient version of Kaspersky with about 100MB. The signature updates are stored and archived separately in a "distribution folder". The distribution folder is a nice feature because it is possible to update different computers, e.g. from the initial Pentium to i7, offline from a single signature download. Whenever my ancient version is set to effective EOL [=cannot be updated from the server anymore], one can still make a fresh install on another computer and update from this distribution folder.

Edited June 26, 2024 by Multibooter

[AstroSkipper]

There is nothing wrong with a little more security, no matter how experienced you are. But it must not lead to the computer being totally overloaded. My real-time protection is always partially switched on or off as required. Web protection and exploit protection are always activated. My old computer copes very well with this. 

[Multibooter]

1 hour ago, AstroSkipper said:

My real-time protection is always partially switched on or off as required. Web protection and exploit protection are always activated.

Have they detected anything? False positives?

[AstroSkipper]

On 6/25/2024 at 1:49 PM, dmiranda said:

I ceased to use KY back in 2014, around Ukraine's coup d'etat, figuring it was going to go the way of "western" AV (i.e., serving another version of echelon). Back then there was a tool that worked quite well: KAV Removal Tool 1.0.179.0 © 1997-2011 Kaspersky Lab ZAO.

If I had used KY back in 2014, around the military invasion into Ukraine with subsequent annexation of Crimea in violation of international law, I also would have immediately ceased to use it on my system(s).  But as I already mentioned, KY was never an issue for me due to many well-known reasons.  

Edited June 27, 2024 by AstroSkipper