AV and Firewall Security thats not a resource hog

[-=TriX-R4-KidS=]

hi,

my moms got 4 computers which she uses at her home and family bizness. they are old...600mhz celerons and non-ocable mb's. ive already convinced here to add to the 32mb RAM each had and now each has 160mb. she wont get new until these are no longer usable. which is okay bc they are mainly used for word processing/internet/listening to mp3's/other light tasks.

windows xp pro is installed on all 4. and i have tweaked the os to only use 70-75mb RAM.

anyway, im wondering what are some good non-resource hogging anti virus software and firewall software i can install on these 4 to leave the most amount of RAM/CPU cycles free to other tasks.

thanks for any input,

-TriX

[ptwearnhardtfan]

Well as far as a firewall, why not a hardware firewall like as part of a router.

[-=TriX-R4-KidS=]

Originally posted by ptwearnhardtfan
Well as far as a firewall, why not a hardware firewall like as part of a router.

well...we connect to the internet via a residential gateway. and then split that connection via a switch. i guess a router w/ hw firewall would work, but id like to avoid spending uneccesary money.

-TriX

[-=TriX-R4-KidS=]

bump...

ive found Tiny personal firewall which seems to be just the thing i need. now about the AV. ive got norton AV corporate edition...but this is a pretty big resource hog....any alternatives that play nice w/ my resources?

ty,
TriX

[touser]

Good choice on tiny personall firewall, that is what i was going to suggest. For A/V i use and highley recommend nod32, www.nod32.com it is the best a/v i have ever used and it uses hardely any resources. It only uses 2mb of system resources for itself, and if you want to use the pop3 scanner as well its only 2mb more :).

[Penguin4x4]

Sygate (http://www.sygate.com) and AVG (http://www.grisoft.com) are a potent double whammy that uses barely any resources at all, and are free to boot. :)

[-=TriX-R4-KidS=]

thanks for the suggestions touser and penguin. ill check those out. :-)

-TriX

[BaldHeadedDork]

And for AV, check the settings. Norton has a default setting for checking for updates almost constantly, scanning all outgoing mail and other stuff that isn't necessisary. Trimming that can eliminate a lot of the lag in your system.




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