http://www.avg.com/us-en/free-antivirus-protection

from the link you can see the difference between paid & free....

but I use a paid one also, the free one is what IT downloads so its scans twice a day.

If you're online with the XP machine-- get rid of it. It's slow and vulnerable to all sorts of things and Microsoft isn't doing anything to fix it any more.

I agree with your hatred of Win7-- I have a Lenovo laptop with that mess on it and it drives me crazy. Since I don't need it for anything important, I finally wiped it and put Linux on it to play around with.

I got a win10 laptop at a reasonable price (not having the touchscreen saves hundreds) and it's great. I also have a Win8 desktop that I upgraded to 10 and it's also great-- almost crashproof and everything works pretty much the same as my old XP machines.

Sooo... depending on your finances, dump the XP desktop for one of those new all-in-one Win10 desktops out there and do the same with the laptop. You can wait with the laptop since Win7 will be working (lamely) for a few more years. Or, you could just upgrade the laptop to 10-- it's free.

I don't remember since it's been over a year, but I think my all-in-one desktop was around 500 bucks on sale. It was Win 8, then I got 8.1, now it's 10, and has been working just fine all along.

When the chorus tells all about the horror stories about Win 8 & 10, don't listen. There are always a few minor problems, but there are more people out there who just hate change.

on edit-- Don't worry about AVG. The newer Windows are almost good enough to forget about third party AV stuff. Not completely, but you don't need to pay for it.

And 7 works way better than either 8 or 10 in my experience. and you'll find far more hardware and software that won't work right on 10 than on 7.

that I'm running a business with two XP laptops, and currently surfing the Web with umpteen tabs open in Firefox ...

I do have Kaspersky running, which I guess gets me off the hook a little.

There's nothing wrong with encouraging someone to upgrade if they sound that way inclined, and definitely nothing wrong with encouraging folks to have good AV software on their system.

But after all the scare stories about XP, I asked in another thread here back in June 2014:

So far, one person replied, and that was just to say he couldn't use spellcheck on DU for a couple of weeks. Of course, it may be self-selecting as other folks still running XP could have had their computers explode.

So please stop spreading the myth that XP = Guaranteed Doom. A lot of people are still running it, and there's no need to spread unnecessary alarm.

it sure beat Win98. But as good as it may be, it's not going to get any better. New software will have problems running on it and it will age to a point of obsolescence. How long will that take? Who knows, but I won't forget the company I consulted for years ago that bought a program core to its business machine coded for the IBM PC. Not an XT, not an AT, not a Compaq-- it had to be a vanilla PC and the company that wrote it went out of business around the time IBM stopped making PCs.

Kinda like driving a great old car without antilock brakes-- probably nothing will happen, but if you have a choice...

So, what happens when the AV people give up on upgrading their XP stuff?

It runs the software we need just fine, and it doesn't look like our core software (MS Word and a functional browser) is going to stop doing its job any time soon. In fact, upgrading to Windows 10 could lead to the need for other upgrades of software and hardware (not to mention productive time lost just to learn how to get the ruddy system to do what it already does for us), which just aren't necessary to keep us functioning at the moment. I'm damned if I want to go over to Microsoft's subscription model and more or less forced use of the cloud if I can help it, for instance.

I dare say if the OP's computers weren't apparently in the habit of cacking out, it would do what she needs it to do as well.

"What happens when the AV people give up on upgrading their XP stuff?"

Well, unless I can find a reliable legacy alternative (bearing in mind there is still a large market of XP holdouts), that would mean that it no longer does what we need it to do.

So that would be a cue for upgrading.

A lesson I've learned over the years (learned hard!) is that there's a sweet spot for system upgrades, both in terms of price and in terms of others knocking the rough edges off OSes etc.

https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-26/product_id-739/cvssscoremin-5/cvssscoremax-5.99/Microsoft-Windows-Xp.html

There are quite a few and that list will only grow. XP = Guarenteed doom. You would be foolish to use it for anything other than basic web surfing and email. Anything requiring any sort of security at all would be unwise to do on an XP box.

Not only are these vulnerabilities present they are listed for all the world to see and will never be closed. Might as well leave your front door open on your house with a direct view to your flat screen TV. Sure you could likely get away with it for a long time depending on the neighborhood you live in but eventually someone will walk by that door and run in and grab that TV.

Yet I still have only one reply to my enquiry on that earlier thread from June 2014 about people having verified issues with XP, and that seems to have had nothing to do with XP at all.

And I can't recall the last time we had a security issue ourselves.

As of April 2015, XP still had 250 million users: https://redmondmag.com/articles/2015/04/08/windows-xp-usage.aspx

Must be dropping like flies, then.

You are welcome to do as you like to be sure but that doesn't mean you aren't that guy with your door open waiting for your TV to be stolen. The fact you have gotten away with it so far has no bearing whatsoever on whether or not it is secure.

Just because you are unaware of security issues does not mean you don't have them. It is entirely possible you are infected and have no idea.

not least because I don't think this sidetracking will help Paper Rose with her question.

Nice list. Hey, try firing up Event Viewer - as that nice man on the phone who keeps ringing up out of the blue to help with my computer running slow will tell me to do - that's really scary. As for the botnets, sounds like some people are not running effective, or even any, AV, and possibly no firewalls.

I've worked with computers for over 30 years. I weigh the risks and take precautions as I see appropriate in a field where all my output is scanned vigilantly by my clients, some of whom are large corporations.

A couple of years ago my neighbour, who runs a Win7 laptop, had severe issues with her machine. Her ISP handed her on to a support company that reported that her system was riddled with infections. The company remote accessed her computer and supposedly fixed the issues (I have no idea whether she really had malware infections, or at least that many - she didn't know me well enough to call me in at the time, which was a shame), charged her a tidy sum, then insisted that to be safe she needed to use Outlook Professional for email, and charged her the equivalent of a full Office license for it.

She called me after she started getting warnings that she only had so many days left to reauthorize the software - well, in fact she left me precisely one day before a weekend to deal with the issue. I managed after quite some effort to get in touch with the company on her behalf, and they said they had to remote access her machine to fix the issue. She let them do this, despite misgivings, and all was well for another six months, when the same warning started appearing again. To cut a long story short, although her invoice from them said nothing about the license being a subscription, they insisted she would have to pay the equivalent of a full Office license again, and so on year after year. I resolved it by installing Windows Live Mail instead. She's had no problems since. Improved OS security wasn't a great selling point in her case

Most people are more at risk from social engineering scams - phishing etc. - than AV issues. My neighbour lost nothing from these supposed malware infections, but the company - endorsed by her ISP - screwed her for hundreds of dollars and caused her a lot of stress over a considerable period.

Our own security is something we can take care of, but I absolutely refuse to do online banking, not because of risks on our machines, but because I don't trust the banks to take care of their side. The closest we've come to a security scare in recent years was when our ISP TalkTalk got hacked and there were massive scare stories about the scale of the data breach of bank details etc. If they're to be believed, none of our data was actually compromised in the end. But given how flatfooted they were, my ISP was more of a danger to our livelihood and welfare than anything on our own computers.

should be forced to use Vista (The Dark Days) for a year. I've got 7 and have absolutely no desire to upgrade. Free or not.

and the free versions. If you're comfortable doing so, open msconfig and click on the startup tab (google "how to open msconfig in xp" if you need to) and clear all startup items. There should be a button that allows you to clear all. Close this and restart your computer. When the computer reboots a message or window comes up because you just made changes with msconfig. Respond that you do not wish to see this message again. Go onto the AVG site and download a new free version. This should ensure that you have a working copy of free AVG without any of the pesky 'buy me now ads' and by closing automatically started items with msconfig you may have more free memory to let the computer run faster. Good luck!

I cant count how many machines it has caused issues on. Honestly these days Viruses are not the issue they once were most of the problems these days are spyware or adware related. You would be much better off with something else.

Having said that removing AVG can be a bear.

'used' desktop with windows 7 to try Amazon. Use the dropdown and find computers. Then click desktop.

You'll see on the left, selection windows 7 on lots of desktops and many are refurbished(with guarantee) and very, very inexpensive.

I suggest to find one with "Microsoft Office" included, there are some. And free shipping is always nice. Happy shopping

doesn't pay for any software,once familiar with sites like PB you can get anything you need with no bugs.