[ale] [OT] good FREE windisease anti-virus software

m-aaron-r aaron at pd.org
Fri Feb 12 21:43:14 EST 2010


My friend Lili called me yesterday, desperately seeking
technical advice on reviving her dysfunctional windisease
Xcrement Pile EEE netbook.

The machine was hanging in the middle of the OS startup, so I
calmed her frazzled nerves by assuring her it was most likely a
windisease corruption that could be fixed with [ram]disk wipe
and a system re-iinstall.  While my happy perpetual mantra is
"I don't do windows",  I was able to connect her with my friend
Sukru at the Stargate Computer repair shop near Emory (North
Decatur and Clairmont). He found, as I suspected, that her
windisease system had been infected by more viruses than
a CDC lab building, and that the bugs had throughly corrupted
her machine. He is in process of getting her system cleaned
off, re-installed and limping along again, but she is now
acutely aware of needing better anti virus software, which
Sukru understandably offered to sell her.

Given that Mafia$oft has turned the virus vulnerabilities of their
incompetent OS designs into a terror driven, self perpetuating,
100% profit point protection racket bonanza for windisease
computer retailers and repair services, I strongly discourage
people from spending any money on windisease anti-virus
software. Even at Sukru's very fair prices, I find it totally
obscene that my friend is having to pay for data recovery
and re-install services in the first place, so I promised to
help her track down a free anti-virus solution for windisease
XP -- just something to keep her out of the tech hospital
until I can get her fully cured with an upgrade to Linux,
something which she is now intensely interested in doing.

Again, "I don't do windows",  but I know there are folks on the
list who do so regularly, so I'm looking for recommendations
on good, FREE (preferably also Open Source) anti-virus
software for windisease XP, keeping in mind that this is
for a netbook which won't have a lot of system resources
to waste.

Google shows up strong on ClamWin, and AVG shows up
as a "free" closed source offering, but I'd be happy to be
educated on the strengths of either as well as any other
options out there.

Lili and I thank you in advance for any and all suggestions!

peace
aaron



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