What is the best free anti virus, spyware and firewall software for windows 98?

AVG.

www.avg.com

-Tim

What is the best free anti virus, spyware and firewall software for windows 98?trojan

Much is disappearing for 98. (ouch).... Read This:

Linux OS for older Windows Machines

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For Windows 95 through Windows XP ....

If you are running Windows 95 through Windows XP Service Pack 1 - your Computer is not fully patched and wide open to malware installations leaving paid subscription security software as the only defense....

[ If you are running Windows XP Service Pack 1 - simply Upgrade to Service Pack 2 to enable Microsoft support for your computer including neccessary Critical Updates through Windows Updates]

If you are not aware of this, support and most Windows services including Windows Updates have been discontinued except for Windows XP Service Pack 2 and the new Vista. The cyber criminals are well aware of this. They ping machines constantly for older machines as well as new ones. This is a lot like submarine warfare with sonar scenarios - for sake of imagination.

What anyone should be aware of is that simply installing a firewall will block most of these type 'pings' for information that is leaked that will include operating system information and more. The reason this is valuable information to cyber criminals is obvious... One instance is that within the last year or so there have been a whopping three "Zero Day" exploits that were the WMF metafile, VML (Vector Mark Up Language), and the latest .Ani Cursor exploit. All that means is that a door was left open and unlocked (unpatched machine) in the worst cyber ghetto neighborhood. The WMF meta file exploit from the beginning of these gave birth immediately to the fake antispyware programs that were 'ransomwares' (and other malwares) - hijacking the computer for $30 or so with fake security messages to buy the fake products which in turn if anyone was fooled without security knowledge and did buy them - they also immediately sold all that financial information to the cyber underworld or used their financial information (check/card) to max out their accounts entirely. These are known as SpyAxe, SpyFalcon, SpywareQuake, and there are now even more. If anyone was "lucky" - all they got ripped off for was the $30.