Hi.
@dark.

I'm not sure about malware bites, but for a very accessible virus protector, try vipre. You can find the homepage here. www.vipreantivirus.com/

Mmmm, socheat, why would I want an antivirus that wasn't accessible?  Last time I bought a new laptop a couple of years ago, it had the free version of avast on it and the access was horrible, heck I barely knew if I had any viruses sinse I couldn't read the bloody messages, so I consider avast useless.

Avg internet security (which is a bit more extensive than the bog standard antivirus), has worked well for me for years in terms of clearning viruses and other nasties even if it didn't seem to work with this particular addware, and  their pc tuneup program which does defrags, registry fixes etc, it's just annoying the version conflict with xp and the fact I can't get them to actually sell me a working version even  though it's still very much being supported.

That is why I am interested in Malware bytes, particularly sinse it got rid of that annoying addware very well, indeed even if it does not do viruses I might keep it as a spyware and addware protector even if I get another antivirus later.

I agree with roelvdwal
but with one qualification.

Getting off XP is good advice, but if you *must* continue to use XP for any reason I highly recommend  only using it inside a VM with lock down security.

Ideally Windows XP should only play inside the VM, and all potentially leaking VM features like folder sharing should be disabled, and the virtual OS should be set to nonpersistent so that everything is reset after each restart.

If I wanted microsoft's sales pitch I'd go to their site. can someone please answer my question rather than just giving me the usual superlatives (I hope microsoft pay this security bogyman, he's doing a better job than all their other advertisers combined).

Thank you roelvdwal that was a very unhelpful answer to my question about malware bytes, particularly sinse as I said earlier malware bytes did get rid of said virus anyway.

if I want lots of superlatives I'll look in a dictionary. If I want a useful computer that does what I want I'll continue with a system I like, and sinse microsoft haven't provided me a decent     alternative in interface or compatibility that is Xp, ---- hell why they didn't just write a better xp, rather than all this incompatible new crap with it's stupid interfaces I don't know.

Yes, new machines may have more computery wootery and big numbers of this that and the other, but I really couldn't care less, sinse that really isn't a replacement for running all the stuff I want to run and doing the stuff I want to do easily. When there is actually a real practical bennifit to using one of these cruddy new systems with their bloody stupid interfaces and having the devil's own time to run all my old software, I'll do so then, but that time isn't now and in the mean time hurling a bunch of superlatives at me "more powerful", "more secure" really won't help much, particularly when I'm just looking for a streight answer to a question about an antivirus program.

To answer your questions, malwarebytes doesn't check for viruses, just malware.

Sadly, there's no good anti-virus anymore. The ones that have a decent detection engine are inaccessible, while the ones that are accessible not only have poor detection rates but also impact your computer's resources, something you're a lot more likely to feel on an older system with XP. I personally don't use any anti-virus. On Windows 8+ I keep windows defender on which seems to do an OK job, but I mostly rely onn common sense, and if I'm ever unsure of a file I scan it with virustotal which runs a scan with 60 different AV's and tells you the result. I also do this on my XP desktop that I have for gaming, but only because I use firefox which is still getting security patches.
As annoyed as you are with what people are saying, I somewhat need to also suggest you upgrade. Normally, I would say switch web browsers and you'd be good, but Dolphin doesn't seem to care about firefox for a few years now so your screen reader is limiting you to IE 8, which, just like Xp isn't getting patched. And saying that all you do is the occasional google, browser game and email with it isn't an argument that you'll be safe, because a lot of browser infections get in via ads. Even google doesn't check for these and as a result many perfectly harmless sites can cripple your system. Once AVG warns you something's up, well, it's too late because something just exploited some low level IE vournollability, probably got administrator access and installed something.

Interesting, I read someplace that mse would be supported on windows xp till July this year.
Regarding myself, I use microsoft security essentials myself, but I´m looking for a better alternative but haven´t found something that really works.

hi,
Agreed with peter.  The only halfway decent and accessible antivirus is avast with self-defense disabled.  Everything else is imo iether inaccessible or crap e.g microsoft  security essentials or windows defender on windows 8 both of which are the same product.  Also tward, saying that microsoft security essentials has so and so detection/protection is a dramatic understatement imo.  Microsoft security essentials  has consistently ranked last in detection since 2012.  Look at the following article for latest test.
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/microsoft-b … 20703.html
on another note, I wish avira would fix their warning popups so I could go back to using avira again.

There is a difference between selling and supporting a product. Look at any other hardware, say, an iPhone 4S. Apple still released iOS 8 for it, and if your iPhone breaks, you can have it repaired by them. However, they no longer sell it in the apple store or with any carrier, at least in most countries. So, my guess is that what AVG means by support is that 2013 is still getting definition updates for people who bought licenses, but it's not something that can still be purchased. Dropping XP support in 2014 is understandable, Microsoft stopped support in April and this is the point where many large developers stopped supporting it also. AVG should have been a lot more clear on this and I really can't blaim you for getting confused.

While typing up this post I started thinking which AV's exactly have XP support, and for how long. This site was the first hit and the one bad thing I found here, at least for you, is that vipper dropped XP last month so it's no longer an option.

If you want dark, I'd be willing to help you reinstall windows 7 on your pc. I've done this several times remotely, so if you want to upgrade but don't want to, don't hesitate to ask me.

btw, the interface in windows 7 really isn't that bad. It's been a while since I used xp, so I don't remember all of xp, but the only thing that has really changed is the start menu, and now that I've gotten used to it I like it a lot more than the windows xp one. For example, I just type in "play", and then press enter and topspeed 3 opens. on my old machine full of programs and garbage, I had to go to programs with p, hit p about 10-15 times, then expand etc.

That said, you can always use classic shell and bring the windows xp start menu back.