I have Avast Home running on a XP machine with LAN connection to BT Voyager 2500V ADSL Router, all works fine. I also have an old Pentium1 Windows 98, 40 MB Ram and Avast Home makes it crawl as it is scanning all the time.
If I uninstall Avast from the W98 machine and connect its LAN card to a port on the ADSL Router it browses the web fairly fast, but no virus protection or firewall ???. I installed a small piece of software called “AnalogX Proxy” on the XP machine, binding the proxy to the IP of the Lan Card port on the XP. I then allowed an exception for the proxy in the XP firewall and connect both the the Lan ports of the ADSL Router. On the W98 I then set IE explorer to use proxy and set IP of XP machine and the TCP port for the proxy. All appears to work, I can browse the web Ok on both machines and the Avast on the XP machine sees the traffic to and from the W98 via the XP Lan.
Question does this give me good enough protection for the W98 machine since it it being scanned by the Avast installed on the XP???.
What about the fact both are plugged into the router Lan Ports, Is there any Web traffic that woud go direct to the W98 or is it all ported to the proxy on the XP by IE explorer using the proxy???
This scenerio also works by connecting the XP and W98 direct together with a crossover Lan cable and fitting a wireless adaptor to a USB in the XP for Internet-Router connection. The proxy on the XP machine does the sharing and Avast on the XP sees the Web traffic on the Lan card and USB wireless. Would this be a safer method as the W98 is not plugged direct to the Router hub???
Most of the traffic counts up on the Network shield with some on the Web Shield.
Would be grateful for your ideas and help on this Please,
I don’t think either of the setups you’ve outlined are an adequate substitute for a resident scanner on the Win98 machine.
40MB RAM and a Pentium 1 (what speed?) is not really enough for standard Win98 and default avast! install.
You can trim down 98, 98SE & ME to “SLEEK” with the free preview version of 98lite by Shane Brooks.
Also make sure that only what is absolutely necessary is loaded at startup.
You can also install (or “change” in “Add/remove Programs”) only the ‘Standard Shield’ on-access scanner and not the 6 other ‘Providers’
I would also suggest disabling avast auto updates for program and definitions and diligently updating manually. This will give you good basic protection with lower system overhead.
Thanks for the reply, The LitePC option seem very interesting, I think I will try it. Is the LitePC just download the software and run it and reconfigure the existing W98 installation or is it standalone version of W98. And will it allow browsing modern sites, scripting etc. My existing W98 has difficulty doing this.
My old W98 is an old machine, I only want to use it as a second machine because I have it?? so not worth spending money on more ram (old EDO ram anyway) and processor is 75Mhz Pentium1.
My original question was more on how does Avast Home on the XP machine protect another PC (without avast) connected to a second XP Network Connection (Lan Card on XP). All the traffic from the XP to the W98 goes through the Lan Card and I can see it displayed in the Avast Network Shield. Does that not give the W98 some protection or is it just passing through and displayed ??.
I could install Avast on the W98 and trim it down as you suggest but without the On Access scanning running on the W98 my question is, Does the Avast running on the XP machine give the W98 at least some level of online protection rather than connection the W98 to the router directly??
You could at least engage WebShield onto the line. Configure your “AnalogX Proxy” to use upstream proxy at localhost:12080 - at the XP box - and your downloads to W98 machine, via the Proxy, would be scanned by WebShield.
75MHz is less than I was expecting. Everything will be slow due to the 1.5 x 50MHz CPU clock, PIO 4 (at best) IDE, slow memory, etc.
I have an old Compaq 1220 Cyrix MediaGX 200MHz Single-Chip-PC laptop with 80MB RAM running 98Lite-Sleek and avast! Standard Shield only, and I consider its everyday usefulness only ‘marginal’.
98Lite-Sleek replaces the 98 explorer shell with the non-integrated, and 5-10 MB smaller, 95OSR2 version, so you would have to get hold of those files from a 95 CD or an existing 95 installation.
In your case the slow CPU is going to be more of a limiting factor than available RAM so it may not be worth all the effort.
If you really wanted to experiment you could try an IDT Winchip C6 200MMX which is a drop-in replacement for a Pentium 75. (It interprets the 1.5x multiplier jumper setting as a 4x so you get 4x50MHZ=200.) Its not as fast as a real Pentium 200MMX but it would be twice as good as what you’ve got.
My problem is understanding how avast provides protection with the different types of shields.
I have the W98 and the XP plugged into separate Lan Ports on the BT voyager router. There is Avast installed on the XP machine, there is no Avast on the W98 machine. The analogx Proxy I had on had a very basic configuration so I uninstalled it and now installed “FreeProxy” on the XP which allows more configuration options.
The IP for W98 is 192.168.1.4 and IP for XP 192.168.1.3 and the Default Gateway is 192.168.1.1.
On the W98 I set IE explorer to use proxy at 192.168.1.3 port 8080 and on XP set up port 8080 binding to lan card interface 192.168.1.3. I also had to allow exception port in windows firewall for the freeproxy. When I browse the internet I see the Network Shield display the web addresses and it counts up the activity. The Standard shield and the web shield do not increment. I assume this is because I am connected to the Lan Network card of the XP. Does this mean Avast is scanning all activity from the web to the W98 OK even though not the Web shield. Does that matter?? Or can Web traffic go to the W98 direct from being connected to Voyager hub without going through the Avast on the XP machine.
I also set a port 12080 on the Freeproxy but I dont see any difference still only the Network Shield shows any traffic.
When I browse from the XP machine I see activity randomly on Standard Shield, Network shield and web shield.
Avast does not protect your win98 PC in this configuration. Network shield is checking your URLs, so you cannot connect to web pages we block, but that is by no means sufficient.
You must configure avast on your XP box to scan the traffic of the Proxy as I suggest in the previous post. Normally avast! WebShield just protects your browsers, but the traffic does not go through browser.
I don’t know what do you mean that you have set the port 12080 on the Freeproxy. You set it where to do what in what during what?
You can configure avast! to scan the traffic from the proxy basically two ways:
I am sorry, I am new to this, I dont know what it means. Does it mean If I had Avast installed normally on a W98 machine then I would go to IE and set to use proxy Localhost, Port 12080.??.
The AnalogX Proxy has ony the one configuration as far as I can see and that is set IE browser to use Proxy at IP address of XP machine and port 6588. Also bind the proxy to the Lan interface with the same IP address. That is why I installed “Freeproxy” as it allowed more configuration. I had to define a port 8080 in the setup binding to the Lan interface. and set W98 browser to use proxy and port 8080.
I am not sure “Freeproxy” is a good proxy to be using, I went to their support forum pages at “handcraftedsoftware.org” an its full of “bad” pages, hackers etc??? so I may go back to AnalogX if I can configure it to use Avast.
If I connect the XP and W98 direct together with a crossover Lan cable and fit a wireless adaptor to a USB in the XP for Internet-Router connection or install a second Lan Card in the XP machine. The proxy on the XP machine does the sharing and Avast on the XP sees the Web traffic through the Lan card and USB wireless. In this way the W98 is not plugged direct to the Router hub??? Do I need to setup any ports in this situation ??. It all appears to work. The W98 browser will be set to use proxy port 6588 for AnalogX or else port 8080 if using Freeproxy.
the brand of your proxy server nor the port number your proxy server uses has no significance here. It only confuses things.
Avast does not protect your W98 box unless you configure it to scan the connections (of the proxy) used to download stuff to w98 machine.
If you use proxy server (and please choose one) you have to configure avast to scan the connections of this proxy server.
Please follow the advice in my previous message to find out how to configure your winXP box to scan connections made by the proxy server of your choice.
I had avast4 already running on the XP box. Edited the .ini file and setup IE in the W98 box. Also had to allow port 12080 exception on the Lan connection on XP. and Magic it worked.
The blue a revolves when I browse on the W98 machine. Is Avast now working like a proxy??
I am still configured with both W98 and XP plugged direct into the hub ports on the Voyager router. Can traffic still get to the W98 box from the router directly without being scanned by Avast.??
Also if I put a second Lan Card in the XP and connect the W98 to it would that be a better arrangement ie. everything going to the W98 would physically have to go through the XP box.
Indeed data can still flow from the Internet to the w98 box directly. Only the browser and programs that respect browser’s proxy server settings will be protected. This is a similar setup to the situation, where avast is installed, but only WebShield provider is running.
Using two network cards in the XP box (or blocking the traffic in the router-if possible) makes it of course more secure. Either way you are “running” only WebShield, mails are unprotected, and standard shield is not in used - so you can get infected e.g. via USB, CD, possibly even network shares.