old laptop, need stripped-down performance

one downside of being unemployed is that i no longer have my work laptop for surfing. so i've taken over my wife's old laptop and need to get it to work faster.

it's currently loaded with Windows XP SP2, Norton 360, IE7, the MS Office suite (i never use outlook and can certainly live without it), AOL, and maybe some other stuff.

need to maintain compatibility with MS Office suite.

looking for recommendations on:

antivirus (other threads suggest AVG available from free.grisoft.com)

web browser (firefox? others?) pros and cons for all suggestions please!

spyware / malware protection

anything else that i'm missing?

If it were me, I'd load one of the leaner flavors of Linux on it.

Use OpenOffice for your Office needs (it's compatible). Firefox or Opera for browsing.

That should be a pretty lean, lightweight, safe and fast system. With a firewall, you're highly unlikely to need any further malware protection.

Total cost: 0

ubuntu comes with open office and firefox and thunderbird, and is MUCH faster on older machines.

http://www.ubuntu.com/

Could Ubuntu make a really old Pentium® III LV 933-MHz, 640mb SDRAM, Gateway laptop run any faster?

It's like 6 or so years old and just laying around otherwise, but its really thin.

Norton 360,

That, would be your problem right there.

I've said it before and I will say it again. 99% of the population gets computer virus'/bugs because they go onto the intranets where they shouldn't. I haven't had anti-virus on both my WIN XP and VISTA equipped machines and have never had a problem (in 5 years). I make sure to keep them clean and to stay away from where I shouldn't be going ;)

Autolex wrote: ubuntu comes with open office and firefox and thunderbird, and is MUCH faster on older machines. http://www.ubuntu.com/

make that Xubuntu for the fastest speeds

Tim Baxter wrote: If it were me, I'd load one of the leaner flavors of Linux on it. Use OpenOffice for your Office needs (it's compatible). Firefox or Opera for browsing. That should be a pretty lean, lightweight, safe and fast system. With a firewall, you're highly unlikely to need any further malware protection. Total cost: 0

in my experience with open office, it compatible until you actually need to open a .doc file someone sends you, make changes and save it in the same format.

RedS13Coupe wrote:

Tim Baxter wrote: If it were me, I'd load one of the leaner flavors of Linux on it. Use OpenOffice for your Office needs (it's compatible). Firefox or Opera for browsing. That should be a pretty lean, lightweight, safe and fast system. With a firewall, you're highly unlikely to need any further malware protection. Total cost: 0

in my experience with open office, it compatible until you actually need to open a .doc file someone sends you, make changes and save it in the same format.

Correct, you need to do a save as in order to save it in an MSoffice compatible file format for now.

to the person who mentioned pitching norton, I could not agree more. they are a bloated power sucking waste of time

if you want to see how your system will run under Linux/Ubuntu test it by running it off a live CD with realization that it will be running faster once it actually gets installed on the hard drive.

you can dual boot linux with XP if you install linux after you've installed XP or even Vista. Hmm... maybe I'll do that in a little while.

I dual-booted Ubuntu and Vista for a while, and would have gone Ubuntu 100% if I could have gotten my Pro/Engineer to work. I got everything else to work on it.... sigh

G

Remove AOL and norton. Install Firefox. Never touch internet explorer again and you won't have to worry about antivirus software.

You can set Open Office to save in MS formats by default, I forget where it is but it is in there.

We have not had MS office at home for about 4 years and I don't regret it at all.

Man, there's a lot of you that have more than a few viruses and don't even know it!

I mean, run windows without a firewall of any sort for a day or so, and you'll notice you're constantly being pinged.

AVG is a good free AV, so there's no excuse not to have one.

In OpenOffice, you can set the defaults to save as M$ formats.

In reply to Grtechguy:

The online Google Apps are great for word processing and spreadsheets also. Might save you some space.

OK, so i'm reading up on ubuntu and it looks pretty sweet. my next question is: how do i make the switch from XP to ubuntu? i mean, do i uninstall XP, or do i install ubuntu and then choose which OS to use at power-up or something? sorry for the n00b questions, but i've never done this before.

Backup everything 1st.

then answer this question:

Do you want to retain XP for any reason?

If you want maximum possible performance, back up, wipe the drive clean, then install whichever OS you choose (ubuntu, xubuntu, whatever).

If you want to keep XP just in case, you can set it up to dual boot.

Even if you're going to keep XP, I'd recommend wiping it, reinstalling XP and installing the leanest stuff you can get away with (which doesn't include Norton 360). Most Windows machines that are more than 2 years or so from their last wipe and clean install have all sorts of gremlins that kill performance and stability.

I like Ubuntu. In fact, I have an old Ubuntu PC, plus an Ubuntu VM on my Mac. I've found OpenOffice compatibility with MSOffice to be adequate, but I've never taxed it hard, because I do serious Office work using MSOffice on either my Mac or PC at work.

OK, so i ditched norton and installed the freebie AVG 8.0, and now i can't get onto teh intarwebs from that machine. WTF? windows connection checker says no connectivity to HTTP, HTTPS, or FTP, and recommends that i check port configurations.

as tommy chong would probably say, "what the berkeley is a port configurations, man?"

i'm on wifey's machine now, and will use it to look for a FAQ or something on AVG's website, but anyone out there got any simple suggestions for me? i'm an idiot when it comes to anything more than using software.

thanks for the help!

Firewall or your network connectino go hosed thanks to Norton. See if AVG has a firewall if not then it might be the Windows Firewall. You may also want to get a copy of the Symantec Antivirus removal tool (otherwise known as nonav)

so, the AVG installation tells me it detects an older version of Roxio Easy CD Creator, even though I used the "add and remove programs" function of Control Panel to remove Roxio before i'd ever even heard of AVG. it also tells me that there's a bug in Roxio that is known to cause issues with AVG. bummer. i guess i'll download some other free antivirus package.

thanks for all the help. without norton, the machine is noticeably faster.

btw, what does it mean to "wipe the drive clean" and how do i do it?

Back up hard drive.

Make or aquire a disc you can boot from.

Boot from that disc

Erase hard drive.

Install OS and the things you really need.

Tim Baxter wrote: Back up hard drive. Make or aquire a disc you can boot from. Boot from that disc Erase hard drive. Install OS and the things you really need.

I second this.

Also give Chrome a shot. I have found it better than Firefox. Better is my subjective opinion.

If you don't want to reinstall windows, go to the start menu, click "run", then type "msconfig". Go to the startup tab and deselect everything except for anything related to AVG. Should only be one box. That should help to speed up the computer.

AVG is a good call. I have used it on several computers with good success. I am currently "trying" avast. Seems to be a good antivirus on this old laptop of mine.

Edit: For a firewall you can use Zone Alarm and for a spyware remover try Adaware. All can be found on www.download.com.

[Colbert, shaking fist] MICROSOFT! [/Colbert]

this friggin' computer is making me grow my hair so i can pull it out! WinXP with SP3 now. i downloaded AVG, installed it, and it FUBAR'd my IE7. uninstalled AVG and IE7 works perfectly.

then i downloaded firefox, installed it, imported settings from IE7, and firefox wouldn't work, but IE7 still worked fine. so i uninstalled firefox.

then i downloaded Avast, ran it, found a trojan, deleted it, opened IE7 to google the trojans name, and IE7 gave same errors as before. uninstalled Avast, powered down, powered back up, and IE7 is all good again.

WTF!111!!!!!!eleven!!!one!!!

Great suggestions in here...Ubuntu or Xubuntu and Openoffice...if you don't play games you don't really need Windows. Malware will be basically a non-issue and you'll get rock-solid reliability.

The only thing you have to worry about is hardware compatibility...it's generally not a problem but if, for example, you have any Broadcom hardware in your PC, you could be in for a rough time...