Antivirus for Win98

[siljaline]

David W. Hodgins wrote:
<snip>
> Keep in mind, that I wasn't suggesting using an out of date virus
> scanner.

I realise this.

> I was suggesting, that if he's careful, an up-to-date, on demand
> scanner should be adequate.

Since Win 98 and/or Win 98 SE includes IE6 Browser, one would want a
full time AV, an on-demand scanner would not be sufficient. I would not run
an OS with an on-demand scanner only. This is in no way secure protection.

The links and info for an AV that works on Win 98, it's up to the OP to decide.

Silj


--
"Arguing with anonymous strangers on the Internet is a sucker's game
because they almost always turn out to be -- or to be indistinguishable from
-- self-righteous sixteen-year-olds possessing infinite amounts of free time."
- Neil Stephenson, _Cryptonomicon_

[Mike Easter]

siljaline wrote:

> Since Win 98 and/or Win 98 SE includes IE6 Browser,

I strongly recommend that a W98se user not use the primitive and highly
insecure browser IE6 SP1, the most recent v. of IE6 which W98 can use.

W98se is a useful operating system for some hardware, but it needs to be
used carefully. IE6SP1 usage is not on my list of careful, and its
corresponding OE6 needs to be configured very 'tightly'.

Trying to counteract reckless behavior with an insecure OS running an
insecure browser with AV and other malware antidotes is madness.

Better to have good behavior and secure configurations and no AV than
bad behavior and insecure configuration plus all manner of antimalware.

--
Mike Easter

[Virus Guy]

Mike Easter wrote:

> > Since Win 98 and/or Win 98 SE includes IE6 Browser,
>
> I strongly recommend that a W98se user not use the primitive and
> highly insecure browser IE6 SP1, the most recent v. of IE6 which
> W98 can use.

Win-98 runs exactly the same version of IE6-sp1 as does Win-2K.

And because Microsoft is still supporting win-2K, they are also
releasing IE6-SP1 rollup patches and fixes for it.

And those same rollup files have been applied by many win-98 users since
the "official" end of win-98 support back in July 2006.

Win-98 users should not be using IE6 for the same reasons that Win-2K or
XP users should not be using IE6 - because it's a horrible browser that
breaks many web standards. Firefox 2.0.0.20 is the last FF version to
run on un-modified win-98 systems, and it's a far better browser (as far
as page-rendering goes) then IE6, and has been for the past 2 or 3
years.

The use of KernelEx helper on win-98 systems allow those systems to
install and run many apps that are marked as "2k or XP only", such as
Firefox 3.x and many others.

Also note that Norton AntiVirus 2002 is a satisfactory (if not
preferrable) AV app for win-98. Contrary to what is stated on
Symantec's website, NAV 2002 can be updated via the "Symantec
Intelligent Updater" package (last time I looked it was 70 mb in size).
This will update both the scan engine DLL's and virus signature files.

The bloat that NAV became known for did not really start until the 2003
version, and became progressively worse each year after that.

[Poutnik]

In article <4BC3EFA6.17FC7CE4@Guy.com>, Virus@Guy.com says...
>
> Win-98 runs exactly the same version of IE6-sp1 as does Win-2K.
>
> And because Microsoft is still supporting win-2K, they are also
> releasing IE6-SP1 rollup patches and fixes for it.
>
> And those same rollup files have been applied by many win-98 users since
> the "official" end of win-98 support back in July 2006.
>
But support and updates for W2K ends in July 2010....

--
Poutnik
The best depends on how the best is defined.

[Virus Guy]

Poutnik wrote:

> > And because Microsoft is still supporting win-2K, they are also
> > releasing IE6-SP1 rollup patches and fixes for it.
>
> But support and updates for W2K ends in July 2010....

And the emergence of new threats against IE6 will also end in July 2010
because so too will examination and public disclosure of new
vulnerabilities.

Not that win-98 is actually vulnerable to many of the IE6
vulnerabilities that *have* been disclosed and patched for IE6 for the
past 6 years.

[Poutnik]

In article <4BC519B6.FC98EE7E@Guy.com>, Virus@Guy.com says...
>
> Poutnik wrote:
>
> >
> > But support and updates for W2K ends in July 2010....
>
> And the emergence of new threats against IE6 will also end in July 2010
> because so too will examination and public disclosure of new
> vulnerabilities.
>
In general, not affecting just Windows:

Aside of publicly dislosed vulnerabilities,
there are plenty of not publicly disclosed vulnerabilities.
Some of them are published even more than a year after disclosing.

Far from all vulnerabilities are diclosed by SW vendors.
Being not supported makes a product in fact more vulnerable.
If you close eyes, you are not less vulnerable to violent people.


--
Poutnik
The best depends on how the best is defined.

[Virus Guy]

Poutnik wrote:

> > > But support and updates for W2K ends in July 2010....
> >
> > And the emergence of new threats against IE6 (sp1) will also end
> > in July 2010 because so too will examination and public
> > disclosure of new vulnerabilities.
>
> Aside of publicly dislosed vulnerabilities, there are plenty
> of non publicly disclosed vulnerabilities.

The exploits that you see widely circulated and used are the result of
public disclosure. This disclosure frequently happens within days of,
or at the same time as the patch or fix being made available by the
vendor.

Hackers and "exploiters" usually do not conduct their own vulnerability
research, but instead rely on public disclosure and then quickly code
their exploits for mass distribution.

The end of IE6-SP1 support will mark the end of third-party
vulnerability investigation and the rewards that come with it (yes,
people get rewarded for telling vendors about the vulnerabilities they
discover). With the end of this vulnerability investigation will also
come the end of new exploits, because hackers will also drop their focus
on IE6-SP1.

There are probably lots of XP machines still running IE6-SP2, but MS
will still be supplying patches for that for some time. But IE6-SP2 is
somewhat different (code-wise) than IE6-SP1, and most likely any
exploits written for SP2 will not function properly against SP1, and
even moreso against IE6-SP1 running on a win-98 system.

[occam]

On 11/04/2010 01:18, Mike Easter wrote:
> siljaline wrote:
>
>> Since Win 98 and/or Win 98 SE includes IE6 Browser,
>
> I strongly recommend that a W98se user not use the primitive and highly
> insecure browser IE6 SP1, the most recent v. of IE6 which W98 can use.
>

The OP is using Firefox, so IE-6 is not the only issue.
I was happily using a Kaspersky [not free] on Win98, before I
decommissioned the PC. However I havre seen free versions of Kaspersky
(version 6) offered by AOL?
http://forum.kaspersky.com/index.php?showtopic=19410

[Mike Easter]

occam wrote:
> Mike Easter wrote:
>> siljaline wrote:
>>
>>> Since Win 98 and/or Win 98 SE includes IE6 Browser,
>> I strongly recommend that a W98se user not use the primitive and highly
>> insecure browser IE6 SP1, the most recent v. of IE6 which W98 can use.
>>
>
> The OP is using Firefox,

Presumably you are referring to this information about the gecko engine
from the OP's headers:

User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.11)
Gecko/20071127 Firefox/2.0.0.11

I don't know exactly how to interpret that. He didn't post that message
with FF 2.0.0.11, but for some reason the user-agent was announced
differently in his headers than Tbird does -- perhaps that means that he
is using a moz suite such as SeaMonkey.


--
Mike Easter

[Mike Easter]

Mike Easter wrote:
> occam wrote:

>> The OP is using Firefox,

> User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.11)
> Gecko/20071127 Firefox/2.0.0.11

> perhaps that means that he
> is using a moz suite such as SeaMonkey.

Also, that win nt 5.1 is XP not W98, so he isn't posting to this group
with a native W98 rig.


--
Mike Easter