[ntechie]

Whenever Avast ceases support for win98, there will not be any 'live' antivirus support left for win98. However, I am absolutely satisfied with the performance of win98 and want to continue surfing on it(even though I have dual booting with winXP)
2. There is another angle to win98 story and that is that while it is true that win98 has almost become obsolete, it is equally true that it is not at all attractive for virus writers. Therefore will it be fair to say that it is , in a way, becoming immune to virus threats ??

[dencorso]

While I really don't believe in "Security through Obscurity", this is a controverse subject, with no real consensual answers...
You may want to read Surviving Without a Virus Scanner and Infection with tenga.a virus, for a start.
BTW, what I do, with a setup similar to yours, is having AVG 9 (the paid-for version) in the Win XP partition, and have it scan every partition from there, whenever I boot to XP, which is becoming more and more frequent. I do also have a tweaked AVG 7.5 (still up to date) doing its job on the 9x/ME partition, but that won't last much longer...

[Mijzelf]

ClamWin still supports W98, and AFAIK there are no plans to stop the support.

[lightning slinger]

See also the thread at http://www.msfn.org/...more-9x-support

While ClamWin only offers on-demand AV scanning the addition of Clam Sentinel does offer real-time AV features and does deserve better recognition. I personally do not use any resident AV application, but I did test ClamWin with Clam Sentinel and it can be configured to look after any drives or partitions you require. 

I had it looking after just my E: partition which holds four folders for Downloads, Temp Internet Files for IE6, Temp files for FF and Temp files for Opera. I tried the very basic test of trying to download the EICAR test file in it's three forms, basic, zipped and double zipped and all three were immediately quarantined upon download which is an near real-time scanning as you will get from Clamwin. 

[Multibooter]

ntechie, on 10 May 2010 - 08:31 AM, said:

Whenever Avast ceases support for win98, there will not be any 'live' antivirus support left for win98.

Not sure. I just updated Kaspersky Anti-Virus v6.0.2.261 under Win98SE, Signature count: 4.104.574, Last update: 5/13/10, several online updates are provided every day.

This post has been edited by Multibooter: 13 May 2010 - 01:56 AM

[Dave-H]

I still use Trend PC-cillin 2002 (version 9.06) on my dual boot (98SE/XP) machine, and it still works fine.
I haven't had automatic virus pattern updates for years, but I download and install the latest pattern files from Trend's site manually and they still install and work fine.
I don't know how much longer for of course!

[Prozactive]

Dave-H, on 13 May 2010 - 05:22 PM, said:

I still use Trend PC-cillin 2002 (version 9.06) on my dual boot (98SE/XP) machine, and it still works fine.
I haven't had automatic virus pattern updates for years, but I download and install the latest pattern files from Trend's site manually and they still install and work fine.
I don't know how much longer for of course!

Thanks again Dave-H. I forgot about Trend Micro's PC-cillin. I suddenly started having problems with Avast! recently and I've been debating what to do. Fix-It Utilities includes a version of that antivirus and I believe they're still updating the definitions.

UPDATE: Well I spoke too soon. It appears that they've discontinued updating the definitions as of December 2009. Maybe there's a way to update the definitions from Trend Micro. I'll have to check into that.

This post has been edited by Prozactive: 14 May 2010 - 09:57 AM

[Prozactive]

Dave-H,

Which pattern file update do you use to update your version of Trend Micro PC-cillin? I took a look at Trend Micro's pattern updates and they list about 2 dozen different files. I suspect the Consumer OPR pattern file is the correct one to use for the version of PC-cillin included in Fix-It Utilities but I'm not sure.

This post has been edited by Prozactive: 15 May 2010 - 09:40 AM

[Dave-H]

Prozactive, on 15 May 2010 - 09:30 AM, said:

Dave-H,

Which pattern file update do you use to update your version of Trend Micro PC-cillin? I took a look at Trend Micro's pattern updates and they list about 2 dozen different files. I suspect the Consumer OPR pattern file is the correct one to use for the version of PC-cillin included in Fix-It Utilities but I'm not sure.

Yes, that's what I use, from here.
There's been a bit of confusion over the pattern files recently, as about a month ago the Trend download page completely changed.
It used to offer just the one file but now there are lots there!
Also, the "Consumer OPR" files suddenly became at least double the size that they were before, with no explanation!
They do work, but for the last couple of weeks I've tried using the "Malware OPR - Windows" file. This is more the size that it used to be, and still works.
The zip files of the two versions actually appear to contain the same "lpt$vpn.xxx" file, just one is twice the size of the other!
Very strange.

[Prozactive]

Dave-H,

Thanks again for the excellent info. I didn't realize the Trend Micro download page had recently changed but it's quite confusing. I did note the very large size of the "Consumer OPR" pattern file (almost 80MB!).

I'm glad you confirmed the lpt$vpn.xxx file names within the pattern updates. The last definitions update provided by VCOM (now Avanquest) for Fix-It Utilities contained a large file with that name format. I'm fairly certain I will be able to update their version of PC-cillin with the latest pattern file from Trend Micro. Like you said, the "Malware OPR - Windows" version of the pattern file is more in the size range of the update file provided by VCOM.

I'm still working on resolving my Avast! antivirus problems but it's nice to know I have an alternative when their support for Win9x/ME runs out (or earlier if I can't resolve the problems).

This post has been edited by Prozactive: 15 May 2010 - 12:55 PM

[diskless]

Dave-H, on 13 May 2010 - 05:22 PM, said:

I still use Trend PC-cillin 2002 (version 9.06) on my dual boot (98SE/XP) machine, and it still works fine.
I haven't had automatic virus pattern updates for years, but I download and install the latest pattern files from Trend's site manually and they still install and work fine.
I don't know how much longer for of course!

Old versions of PC-cillin can be downloaded from
http://www.trendmicr...load/legacy.asp

Later versions than 2002 are available.
Would it be best to use PC-cillin 2005? Or is 2002 the best?

[Dave-H]

diskless, on 17 May 2010 - 07:10 AM, said:

Old versions of PC-cillin can be downloaded from
http://www.trendmicr...load/legacy.asp

Later versions than 2002 are available.
Would it be best to use PC-cillin 2005? Or is 2002 the best?

I was aware that there are later versions of PC-cillin that support Windows 98, I assume PC-cillin 2005 is the last one that does.
I haven't tried any later versions simply because I don't have licences for them!
I'm pretty sure that upgrades from 2002 to later versions were not free.
Whether you can actually buy a licence now for any version I would doubt.
2002 seems to still work fine and I don't know what later versions might provide that would make attempting an upgrade worthwhile.

This post has been edited by Dave-H: 17 May 2010 - 07:37 AM

[diskless]

Dave-H, on 17 May 2010 - 07:33 AM, said:

diskless, on 17 May 2010 - 07:10 AM, said:

Old versions of PC-cillin can be downloaded from
http://www.trendmicr...load/legacy.asp

Later versions than 2002 are available.
Would it be best to use PC-cillin 2005? Or is 2002 the best?

I was aware that there are later versions of PC-cillin that support Windows 98, I assume PC-cillin 2005 is the last one that does.
I haven't tried any later versions simply because I don't have licences for them! <snip>

Thanks.

Which Spyware Pattern do you use?
I don't know what CPR, DCT and OPR mean.

[Dave-H]

diskless, on 17 May 2010 - 11:26 AM, said:

Dave-H, on 17 May 2010 - 07:33 AM, said:

diskless, on 17 May 2010 - 07:10 AM, said:

Old versions of PC-cillin can be downloaded from
http://www.trendmicr...load/legacy.asp

Later versions than 2002 are available.
Would it be best to use PC-cillin 2005? Or is 2002 the best?

I was aware that there are later versions of PC-cillin that support Windows 98, I assume PC-cillin 2005 is the last one that does.
I haven't tried any later versions simply because I don't have licences for them! <snip>

Thanks.

Which Spyware Pattern do you use?
I don't know what CPR, DCT and OPR mean.

CPR means Controlled Pattern Release.
OPR means Official Pattern Release.
Not sure about DCT!

CPRs are released in between OPRs for those who always want the very latest all the time.
I only ever bother with the OPRs.

[JorgeA]

Prozactive,

We may have an additional AV option. Just yesterday, I ran the ESET Online Scanner (http://www.eset.eu/eset-online-scanner) on a 98SE notebook, and it finished successfully.

However, the same scanner crashes at 31% on my 98FE tower that has a more capable CPU and a lot more memory. So it looks like FE/SE may be the dividing line for this program.

Happy Hunting,

--JorgeA

[Prozactive]

JorgeA,

Sorry about the slow response. Thanks for the info about ESET. I've heard about it and I know there are several other online virus scanners people have referenced. I've never used one on my own systems but I have run a few scans on other people's computers during malware recovery efforts. They do seem to work quite well, although I tend to be leery of any online type system scan for whatever reason. Like I said, luckily I've had very few encounters with malware and hopefully that will continue.

When Avast! support for Win9x/ME ends, I will probably switch to PC-cillin or NAV. You should take a look at the very informative "Surviving Without a Virus Scanner" thread dencorso referenced earlier. It presents a long technical discussion about this topic and I will probably implement many of the suggestions.

HTH

[JorgeA]

Prozactive,

Thanks very much for the tip on that thread. I will definitely look it up!

I'll also make sure to look into PC-cillin for the 98SE notebook, for the time when Avast! pushes us away.

BTW, I was browsing at the newsstand today, and IIRC Consumer Reports ranked Avast! 4.8 at the bottom of the free AV applications. I'm not so sure that's such an accurate ranking, but that's how they had it. I'll be waiting for my subscription copy to come in the mail, for the details.

--JorgeA