Ewido seems to slow down my system.

[HankPiano]

Some days ago I installed Ewido, to replace Giant. Along with Ewido I use NOD32 and Sygate Free. Ewido found a Trojan, not yet activated, and some harmless cookies in Firefox 1.0.7. So far so good.
But what bothers me is that my system (Pentium IV, 2,4 Ghz.) is noticeably slower than it was without this program. Ewido Guard uses 21.360kB. Starting up Total Commander, Firefox, Word and other common programs always lead to an annoying hesitation. Do you recognize this 'problem' and is there any solution for it (apart from uninstalling Ewido)?

[Joliet Jake]

Try disabling EWIDO and see if your system runs faster without it for a while, then you'll know.

I don't notice a difference to be honest.

[bigbuck]

I've got the paid Ewido, and my P4, 2.66, 512 is quite sluggish with the 'guard' enabled. I've turned the guard off and I'm just using it as an on demand scanner. Can't even get the automatic updates with the guard turned off.....

[SecurityFan]

Hi Hank. I have a Pentium 4, 1GB RAM, 2.66MHz XP and had the same problem. Even after I turned the real-time guard off, things didn't seem the same. The problem may be I already had a lot of processes running on my machine (I use Norton AV, Norton Internet Security, Acronis, etc. -- these all add multiple processes), but ewido's definitely not for me. I got rid of it.

Art

[Notok]

The only time it really slows down my machine is when I have a lot of behavior blockers that monitor hooks. Ewido uses a shell execute hook, and it can slow things down if you have a bunch of them, and/or have something that monitors what goes through them. The next version of Ewido promises to include an engine that's much faster, however.. so if you've given up, you might check back on the next version.

[Defenestration]

I also have noticed this about the current ewido guard, and am glad I'm not the only person who is experiencing this problem.

I find it unusable in it's current state, but think ewido is one of the most competent AT's, so am looking forward to the next version (containing the new speedier guard).

[HankPiano]

Thanks for the answers so far! (Actually, as a new member I just found out there were answers; I forgot to activate the option to inform me about this).

I'm glad to hear other people have the same problem. In a review about version no. 2 I read that this problem would be solved in version no. 3. So, using the trial of version no. 3.5 I expected to be 'on the safe side'....seems to be a bit optimistic. Anyway, the program itself looks quite good to me. When I turn off the 'real time protection' my system is about back to normal, so I think I'll stick to this option.

That brings me to another question: there is this real time protection ánd the option 'stop the guard' (in Dutch: bewaking stoppen). I just wonder: what exactly is the difference between this guard and the real time protection? I mean: a guard is supposed to protect you; when you are sure you have a clean system do you really nééd this real time protection or is only the guard sufficient?

As I understand from your answers the newer version will be faster and lighter. I'm looking forward to try this new version; the program is worth some patience.

[Defenestration]

The guard is the component that provides the real-time protection.

I still have slowdowns with the current version of ewido 3.5.

The new improved faster guard should appear in either ewido 3.6 or 4.0.

[HankPiano]

-{ Quote: "The guard is the component that provides the real-time protection." }-
OK.....maybe I don't understand something quite simple but to me it looks as if I can turn off the realtime protection without turning of the guard; these are separated options in the little Ewido-window. Why? I mean, what happens when I turn off the realtime protection without disabling the guard, or, in other words, what makes this realtime protection so indispensable?

[Defenestration]

I haven't got it installed at the moment, so cannot be sure, but the guard will continue to automatically download signatures and program updates, even when real-time protection is turned off. Therefore, the guard is just acting like an automatic updater when the real-time protection is disabled.

The real-time protection is actually what monitors and protects the system from infection.

[HankPiano]

Thanks for your reply, Defenestration.
Anyhow, this morning I decided to put back my Acronis-image from last week (I renew the image weekly, works great) with Giant in it. Ewido may be better but as it degrades my computer to a Pentium III system I will wait until they solve this problem and offer a faster and lighter version.

[sweater]

That's one of the most important thing that really bothers me... if a resident protection starts to slow down my system and it only adds making it more sluggish. :-[ I already have several real-time protection active and passive and ProcessGuard is one of them and also the Microsoft AntiSpyware Beta. If I remember it right... one forum member here even says that PG and MS AntiSpyware Beta can really cause a slow down on his system, and he tried running with and without it and the difference in system speed is very noticeable. Well I am not sure, not all set ups are the same but that's his experience, but I think he is not the only one who've experienced this things. :(

Of course if its really good then it's hard to depart from them. But what I'm loooking for is the real-time protections that protects me without any slow down in my system and I hope Ewido improve this thing in their next version. 8)

[Blackcat]

As other members have noted, a lot will depend on what other programs you have running in real-time and how old your system is.

Running with just an AV and a firewall and 2GB RAM, the Ewido Guard here causes no high CPU usage and no performance slowdown. I am hoping that the new HIPS component will not spoil this!

[HankPiano]

As I noted in my first message: I run a Pentium IV, 2.4Ghz. system, not brandnew, neither prehistoric. Just to see what would happen I formatted my c:\ partition and installed a clean XP. Then, without anything else, I installed Ewido. To my surprise the slowdown of my system was, with realtime protection activated, as bad as in my normal configuration. So I put back my Acronis-image and decided to forget Ewido.

Later I installed Ewido on several other systems which I had to clean and only one of these systems did not show this slowdown, that is, there was a slowdown but just slightly. These are my practical experiences with this program, I don't make up anything. So, at the end I use the program only to check my own and other systems, after that I uninstall the whole thing.

I hope next versions will be lighter and less dependent of a configuration, any configuration. Apart from Ewido I only use NOD32, Process Guard and Sygate, which is not to heavy all together.

[wildman]

:) I have been using Ewido for some time now, the trial period has long ago expired so all that is operational is the on demand portion. I do a fast system scan, and the time on average is eight minutes. I also have noticed no slowing in the operations of my machine.

BigBuck: Some where in this thread is a link to use if you have problems obtaining the updates, I used it, and then did a download, I have had no problems obtaining the updates after that at all. It will tell you that the data base is not available, after you initially use the link, and on dial-up, the download did take some time.

Thanks
Wildman
8) ;)

[peter.ewido]

How exactly do you notice the slowdown? When/where does it happen?

[HankPiano]

Just some examples: starting up programs takes considerably more time when realtime protection is enabled, for instance Firefox (apart from its own slowness), Outlook Express, Total Commander, Nero, etc. In fact, in general the process of starting up programs takes more time, whether this is in a clean XP environment or in a complete configuration. Working in a program once it's running doesn't seem to be affected by Ewido (I didnt try every single program).

If there was just a slight slowdown in this starting up process I wouldn't care that much, but I'm talking about whole seconds: you press a key or klick an icon and nothing happens; only after a while the program appears. When you are used to work rapidly with computers this is getting really annoying (one of the reasons people want to get rid of Norton).

So, your question where and when is best answered by the simple statement: at the beginning of any program, anytime.

[tuatara]

Ewido does slow down a system when not using on-demand only.
The reason for me is unknown, i've just reinstalled my system with
Ewido on it.
Because of this thread i enabled all options (guards).
Of course, now there is no slow-down.
If there is, i'll have a look at the system resource usage and report on that.

[Joliet Jake]

Just did a quick (sorry :) ) test...
I opened Creative speaker settings, Creative speaker calibrator and VLC media player and noticed that ewido guard went up to 10% of CPU usage during the start up of these progs. (used Process Explorer from Sysinternals)
Will try some others to see if this is common for all progs.

Firefox made ewido go to 3%
IE made ewido go to 10%
Windows media player saw it go up to 16%
Adaware saw a whopping 45%

Tried these over and over and these % are a decent average on my PC
P4 3.0Gig
1gig RAM