I need a free anti-virus program that works with win95.

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Rainman21

Limp Gawd
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Aug 23, 2007
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I need to find a free Anti-virus program that will work with an old pc that has a 200mhz pentium cpu, 64mb of ram and windows 95 and will not use a lot of system resources. Any help is appreciated.
 
win 95 is not even Y2K compliant, why use win 95? You can easily use your P5- 200 PC on Win 98
 
The computer is my aunt and uncles computer. I would have put Damn small linux on it but they have some games they don't want to lose. I guess they don't have the disc and I don't know if they would work with dsl anyway.

Is Avast light on system requirement? I need something that will not use much ram.
 
I actually installed it recently on a Win98 system with 64 meg o ram. The system was slow anyway so wasn't noticeable by the user. Honestly your choices are pretty limited. I'd say it's time for an upgrade. A system that old, something will be failing soon enough. Should be easy enough to move the stuff they want to keep.
 
They're probably screwed. I think the online scanners will require at least IE6, and 5.5 is the highest win95 will go I believe.

Funny, I just threw out a Norton that was for win95 not 3 weeks ago. Who knows if it would have updated the definitions anyway.
 
You might be better off looking for something that runs in DOS mode... I know FProt used to still make a DOS version to toss on a bootdisk, and I believe it was free (the only cost was the Windows version). Not sure if it still exists thought.

I hate it when people say that you should upgrade for something like this because, if it still does everything they need it to do, there really isn't a reason to upgrade. Thing is, if you're worried about virus infection, then you really do need to upgrade. At one point or another we've all had to say goodbye to those games we lost the install disk for... kind of a necessary evil! :)
 
I'm mainly looking for virus protection not just a scanner because they may be using it for internet. Is windows 95 still bad for getting viruses?
 
You could try clamwin for something that had low overhead, but be aware that it lacks realtime protection.

Will their games run under wine? That would let linux be an option.
 
I would have put Damn small linux on it but they have some games they don't want to lose.
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This rules out linux and wine. Unless they have disks?
 
I will have to check and see which games they want to keep I don't think they have very many. Will wine work with damn small linux?

Is clamwin for windows 95?
 
I think clamwin will work in 95, but I haven't tried it. Worst case scenario is you have to uninstall it.

I don't see any reason wine wouldn't work on DSL, I've seen it run on other small distros like the Parted Magic USB one.
 
Monkey34 said:
This rules out linux and wine. Unless they have disks?
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why? WINE runs everything upto DX8 flawlessly, DX9 is a bit hit and miss
I doubt they are going to be playing games like HL anyway...

Linux is an option here.
 
eeyrjmr said:
why? WINE runs everything upto DX8 flawlessly, DX9 is a bit hit and miss
I doubt they are going to be playing games like HL anyway...

Linux is an option here.
Click to expand...

I wasn't saying linux and wine wouldn't work......I know it works - but if they have games installed, and no disks, putting linux on it isn't going to help. How are you going to re-install them?
Capiche??
 
As far as I know, you're stuck with Avast. It states on their website that they are the only free AV out there that supports W95. So there's no guesswork there.

ClamWin doesn't have real time scanning, it's only on demand..and quite frankly..it can't find a hair in a pile of dog doodoo.

Win95 and Y2K? How many people saw computers actually stop working on Jan 1st back then?

Win95 works on DSL....Win3x works on DSL. The key with OSs being supported on broadband isn't because they cannot work, it's because the ISP won't support legacy OSs due to the software they use. Example...a PPPoE dialer. But if your combo modem/router, or router, does the PPPoE login..there's no software needed! All you need is a browser, and TCP/IP. ;)

As for a browser...they'll miss out on some features...you're stuck with 5.5 if I recall. Can try some alternatives out there..not sure what's still out there that will install on 95.

As to upgrading the OS with something else....like 2K, or some *nix flavor...that's up the OP and how much time of his he wants to volunteer...not only including installing it on an old slow system (there's a day)...but holding their hands teaching them the new thing.
 
Monkey34 said:
I wasn't saying linux and wine wouldn't work......I know it works - but if they have games installed, and no disks, putting linux on it isn't going to help. How are you going to re-install them?
Capiche??
Click to expand...

95 games iirc didn't really install themselve and tended to just run for a directory. Its worth a shot


Anyway doesn't ClamAV work?
you can get portable-ClamAV iirc


http://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/clamwin_portable
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
Win95 and Y2K? How many people saw computers actually stop working on Jan 1st back then?
Click to expand...

I was the tech lead for the Y2K project at a large bank back then. While it wasn't as big of a problem as the media made it out to be, there definitely were problems. I was able to brick many computers in the lab by moving their date forward and letting it try to roll over. I don't think the OS was too big of a problem, but Microsoft did release a Y2k patch for Win95.

My guess is, at this point, Y2k isn't an issue... it would have died many moons ago!
 
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