Windoze anti-virus for MIL

big kaspersky  all in one    supporter here.

30 day trial free, yes.   $79 is the 1 year license free for the I.S. product which  *INCLUDES* the AV product.   it also includes a license for 3 machines-  maybe not helpful for your situation, but a good overall value.

btw, after rethinking it,   KIS can be very simple but there is  a small 'learning curve'.   i don't know if the learning curve is gonna be too 'steep' or not.   the program on 'high' security for most components and training mode for the firewall should be pretty straightforward and only really prompt her excessively the 1st day or two (teaching it what programs you really want to allow/disallow  internet conxns  as you open them)

then again,  with the free trial, you could find this out  at least at no cost.      once you get the program going though (in terms of the training, etc)  it is pretty hands off, basically only prompts you if you (or the system itself)  really do something unexpected and background allows/kills  as need be.



btw, also,  just keep in mind ANYTHING you pick aside from   norton or mccrappee  and anything goes wrong,  you'll need to be the phone support, as the ISP wont be able to help.
 

for the sake of her sanity,  i would say if you get KIS  do not turn on  application integrity control in the proactive defense.  (or the equivalent in any other av/is  package)  LOL.  that is  high security overkill.
(basically anyime a program calls a DLL you have to authrorize each DLL)
    

 

Kev and I use Avast! for our anti-virus.  It's the best free av out there in my opinion.  It's simple to use, light on resources, updates its definitions every day.  We use Comodo for our firewall.  It, too, is free and very thorough.  Ad-aware and Spybot are our top 2 for spyware/malware/etc.  Of course, they're free also.

eset (nod32) fan here.  A former co-worker desktop guru, who's opinion I highly value, recommended it to me.  Never had a problem with it.

Yeah, it can seem like a lot.  When my best friend got her own computer, what Kev and I did for her was to set them up, then stick all the shortcuts in one folder on her desktop.  Told her to check for definition updates about once a month, and run it after she does that.  That seems to make it "simpler" and not overwhelming.  Might that help?

I don't think you would absolutely, positively need Comodo.  XP does have a firewall.  (If you're looking for simple, I don't think it's incorrect to say it's the simplest firewall out there. )  What many people don't like about it is that it only blocks inbound traffic and not outbound, too.  We've been fine with just the XP firewall on the desktop.  We do use Comodo on the laptop (Win2000 pro) and love it.

Spybot and Ad-aware work great as a tag-team, but you could use just one.  Both are great, neither missing but one occasional thing.

It is my opinion that, when there is quality freeware, why pay for something to basically do the same thing?  However, I do understand that it's different for each person.