Free & light antivirus for an oldie PC

[Andy Ful]

Installing Linux will be also a good solution, if your grandma is not addicted to Windows. The downside of this can be some possible problems with drivers, but it is worth trying.

 

[RoboMan]

Thanks everybody. I installed ZorinOS and it works pretty decent.

 

[show-Zi]

Your kindness is installed on your granny's pc along with os.

 

[Raiden]

Thanks everybody. I installed ZorinOS and it works pretty decent.

Glad to hear you were able to give their new computer some life and keep them secure without having to buy them a new computer.

 

[plat1098]

By re-purposing w/Linux, you did the environment a favor also. Big up!

 

[ChoiceVoice]

if he pays, webroot is lightest. and if for respectable free protection, panda dome has worked best for my slower machines (i found it lighter than avast, which has a reputation for lightness). however, clam sentinal is lighter than panda, followed by immunet. pair clam with sandboxie and a light browser (non-chromium) and you have functionality and some level of protection. (and sandboxies full version is now free). if you don't like sandboxie (or it is too difficult for him to work), and it's old enough to be 32 bit, spy shelter used to be free for 32 bit and is light (and can offer a lot of hardening). and change his dns to norton or comodo or someone that screens sites (cuz it adds nothing to ram). further, you could add a limited account for him. and tell him NO ONLINE BANKING, lol.
this is old but still good for impressions: Tested: The Lightest Free Antivirus (To Boot or get the Boot)

 

[ForgottenSeer 55474]

I would suggest Bitdefender, if you also are thinking detection, it is the nr 1. AV and have been for years, perhaps they share that nr 1 place with kaspersky, but Bitdefender has a lighter footprint than Kaspersky, paid or free IMO.

 

[Dex4Sure]

Hello everybody

I'm 1 on 1 with an old desktop PC which was my grandma's, and now it's gonna be my father's. This means, it's an old crappy PC that a 60 year old man is gonna use as news feed, mail, youtube. It has Windows 7 and because of stability issues, it's keeping it.

I've already patched all security updates, automated software updates, installed a light browser. Now I'm in search for a really light and free security solution for it, something that doesn't demand me activating licenses every year since I don't live in the same country. And it has to be light enough to not slow it down further than it already is.

Specs:

• Windows 7 SP1
• 1GB RAM
• 120GB HDD
• Intel Celeron CPU G465 1.90Hz

Thanks in advance for all advice

Honestly, you should just install Linux on that computer. Windows 7 is soon unsupported and that low end specs just don't cut it in Windows world. There are number of decent alternatives, Zorin OS, Linux Mint, even Ubuntu might be a good pick. I'd use LTS version since its more install and forget than more frequent releases that have more bugs due to introducing newer features faster.

EDIT:

Never mind you already installed Zorin OS. I think you made the right choice there. That computer would have been damn near unusable running Windows and AV on top of it.

 

[Pat MacKnife]

I would suggest Bitdefender, if you also are thinking detection, it is the nr 1. AV and have been for years, perhaps they share that nr 1 place with kaspersky, but Bitdefender has a lighter footprint than Kaspersky, paid or free IMO.

Maybe off-topic but latest version BD free (1.0.16.147) runs really smooth, no more big slowdowns on internet and light on system, guess they made an improvement ... on BD forum moderator says it also reads from the cloud, i wonder how it would do in MH

 

[polishpatriot]

What about Voodooshield?

Too many problems. Plus grandma cannot effectively respond to VS notifications.

Anti-executable is only for security soft geeks.