Free Anti-Virus and Firewall Security Freeware Supported on Windows 98 and Windows Me

Microsoft has ended customer incident support or technical support and no longer issues security updates or patches for Windows 98 and Windows ME (Millennium Edition) operating system as part of its product lifecycle policy, as both OSes have reached the point of architectural obsolescene as they’re developed before the era of sophisticated internet viruses. That would means that the OS users will further expose to new security threats and risks.

However, if you decided to continue using Windows 98 or Windows ME, Washington Post has tested a few freeware and trialware of various security tools including anti-virus software and firewall that install, runs and uninstall properly on Windows 98 and Windows ME without causing Blue Screen of Death (BSOD). But before that, you will need to download, install and update Internet Explorer to Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1 which is more secured from Microsoft.

Here is the list of security tools that supports Windows 98 and Windows ME:

Anti Virus Software

Freeware: Antivir Personal Edition Classic, Avast 4 Home Edition, Grisoft’s AVG Personal Edition, Bitdefender 8, Free Edition, ClamWin Free.

Trial Software: EZTrust Anti-Virus (one year free usage), F-Secure Antivirus 2006 (six-month free trial), Kaspersky Anti-Virus 6.0 (30-day trial), Panda Platinum 2006 Internet Security (90-day trial), McAfee Virus Scan (90-day free trial), Trend Micro PC-cillin Internet Security 2006 (90-day trial), F-Prot Antivirus (30-day trial).

Firewall Protection Software

Freeware: Jetico Personal Firewall, Tiny Personal Firewall, ZoneAlarm prior to version 5.5 (support may discontinued anytime).

Browsers

Other than upgrading to IE6, alternative browsers such as Firefox and Opera works perfectly well in Windows 98 and Windows ME and provides more secure surfing experience.

Anti-Spyware Utility

Free: AdAware Personal, Spybot Search and Destroy, Spyware Guard, HijackThis, Spywareblaster, Winpatrol

Trial: eTrust PestPatrol (30-day trial), McAfee Anti-Spyware (30-day trial), Sunbelt Software’s Counterspy (15-day trial)

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This entry was posted on Saturday, July 15th, 2006 at 11:48 am and is filed under Security. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.