Win98 anti-virus and anti-spyware programs?

[VictorVictor5]

Tom's,

One more quick question - since win98 is obviously not supported by Skynet anymore, I was going to put a lite version of an anti-virus program and anti-spyware program on this partition.

Any advice? Something that's not too computationally intensive perhaps???

Thanks!
VV5

 

[wombat_tg]

Memory? Processor? HD size?

One thing to think about is that even if you can find something that will run (highly doubtful) it might not have fully effective definitions for Win98, or have complete protection. Developers stopped giving a hoot about Win98 about 10 years ago. So there's no reason you should assume that even if you have protection it would be effective or complete.

 

[VictorVictor5]

wombat - thanks for the feedback.

400 MHz with 384 MB Ram, 7.65 GB partition on a 160 GB HDD (as referenced by my earlier posts, I'm un-mothballing a Gateway Solo 9100, which has the 8.4 GB partition limit, and the other 2 partitions will consist of XP and Ubuntu - but I still need 98 since some of the useful Gateway programs are 98 only, which sucks).

Just curious - I have AVG and SpyBot on the XP partition - can it cover the Win98 partition? Also, I'm not too familiar with Ubuntu, but do you need an anti-virus for Linux? Wasn't too sure.

Thanks!
VV5

 

[wombat_tg]

Avast is pretty gentle but I think they went to 2000+ support only about a year ago.

You can set the AVG/SB to scan that partition but it wouldn't offer you any sort of real-time protection while you're using the 98, and again, you can't be sure you'll get any 98-specific bugs or any bugs to which 98 is vulnerable but the software doesn't have the ability to detect. I mean, who knows, there might be antiquated definitions in there, and you might have a certain degree of immunity as well if the bug is looking for a key or file 98 doesn't have. I guess if it's free you can always try installing it and seeing what happens.

You won't get any current version of Ubunutu running on it. Even the stripped down installs (Lubuntu/Xubuntu) require 5GB, 512MB and a 500Mhz processor, and those are the min specs.

If you can get the RAM up to 512 your options open up a bit. Under that you've got limited options: Puppy, SwiftLinux, TinyCore, CrunchBang and probably a few others. Processor speed for you is also a consideration. You can always just start ripping your distro of choice up and try to MAKE it fit and run (and behold, a distro is born! )

There ARE anti-virus software for Linux, and Linux IS vunerable to bugs. BUT the general answer is your risk is much lower since most bugs are targeted to the much larger potential victim pools provided elsewhere.

 

[VictorVictor5]

Best answer selected by victorvictor5.

 

[VictorVictor5]

Cool - thanks wombat for all your advice!

VV5