Morning folks, who likes what with regards to virus protection software for a T43. I've been using Avast and I believe its worked well but slows down the machine considerably. I tried AVG for a few years and it let me down and my browser got hijacked. Free/shareware/commercial are acceptable.

burns

If you run windows 7, then all updates + Windows Defender + Windows Firewall should be sufficient if you are a crefull browser!
Otherwise I do recommend Avira Free Edition!!!
Great Antivirus that goes easy on resources and performed better than the Avast Premium Edition!!

hoax, I am still running Xp but I'll give it a try. Side question, if you have a legal Xp do you get a free upgrade to W7? or discounted upgrade?

No to both.

You need 2GB RAM in T43/p for W7 to run decently. Expect the loss of battery life and higher temps as well.

Apart from that, W7 is a smooth experience on ATi-based T43/p units.

I run XP and all I use is Microsoft Security Essentials. Haven't had any issues and it has a very small footprint. Browsing habits are your biggest threat. Be careful when clicking on things your not sure of and always take a look at your browsers address bar to make sure you are where you think you are.

On XP, I have been running Kaspersky AV for the past 7 or 8 years along with Comodo (firewall only). KAV is well worth the cost. It updates 4-5 times a day, and runs with little/no noticeable degradation in performance on my T43 (2687-D3U; 2 GB RAM).

After removing Avast I can't believe the speed increase

@burns334:

How much RAM do you have in that T43?

akj, 1 gb

That's why you feel that Avast was choking it...I have Avast on all of my T43/p units, which have 2GB RAM, and it runs just fine...

All but one also have a PM780 CPU which I'm sure helps...

I run Windows 7 with Microsoft Essentials...it runs fine and does not slow down the T43.

ajk, I didn't mean to say it was choking it but it did slow it down, I've only been fooling around with laptops for about a year although I had several thinkpads as my office machine. I stumbled across 11 thinkpads that had problems that were partially stripped and thrown out for junk. I put all these back together, replacing motherboards, LCD's, keyboards and built hard drives or anything else it needed, usually using the RAM (512MB) that was with it and got them all running. I found that an extra 512MB RAM makes a very decent speed improvement and removing Avast also helps. I think I would certainly like that PM780 CPU but that alone cost more than I've spent on any machine, actually I never heard that processor before. But anyway I'm always trying to learn from anyone who will give me advice on this board, and that is quite a few.

thanks burns

RAM is cheap, especially DDR2 and later, nowadays...

Giving any T43/p the much deserved 2GB would be money well-spent in my opinion...

I gave Avira a try any the 2 popups get annoying and not much luck at removing them either.

What?? I'm running Avira on numorous PC's (XP and Windows 7), and I have always been able to remove the pop-ups?! Try Google after avira antivir remove annoying pop-ups and see what comes up... e.g. How to Remove the Popup Ads in Avira Antivir - wikiHow.

I am a very satisfied with Avira AntiVir Free user, and I have read several tests (comparison of different free and commercial anti-virus packages) which recommends Avira as the best free package - which is even better than some (many?) commercial packages. Try Google after "avira antivir" test best free and you'll see!

Johan

Johan, when I do that on one of my T43's with a R52 motherboard it eliminates the Avira popups but I then get a restricted program warning at startup that looks ominous. At least it goes away with one click but it looks like something serious is wrong with the machine.

burns