Lightest Antivirus

[mike21]

Which antivirus you believe is the lightest?

In terms of pure antivirus not suite/hips/firewall and suppose you use similar settings in each one.

List from wikipedia

[c2d]

ESET NOD32

Very low on resources
It's amazingly light weight,effective,and really efficient.
Just my 2 cents.

[mike21]

btw I voted "Avast".

[sweater]

Maybe and I know that there many out there that are light, but I always goes back to Eset NOD32. I think it is not just light but also effective.

At least it became antivirus of the year...even... in the past. Still, hoping to regain its position and trophy. :D

[SweX]

-{ Quote: "Also I believe that many members are like me, i.e. they have tested in their systems various AVs, so they can judge." }-
Yes, and therefore my vote goes to Noddie 8)

[Cudni]

off topic posts removed. Please vote in the poll and by all means say what you voted for but refrain from discussion on merits of this or that vote

[stratoc]

tried everything else, on paper someothers look lighter, ram usage etc. Eset 'feels' lighter than anything else i have tried, I hope it remains this lightweight.

[Triple Helix]

Prevx hands down even though it's not on the list! ;)

TH

[littlebits]

I voted for Avira, it appears to run the lightest on every system that I tested it on except for Nod32 v.2.7 which is the lightest that I have ever tried period.

Thanks.;D

[blacknight]

Avira.

[TOMxEU]

I allways go for AVG Free with email scanner disabled and Linkscanner not installed.

[acr1965]

Avast. Once using version 5 I have not bothered even trying anything else.

[Noob]

Voted ;)

[Motherroad]

Avira

[tipo]

avira

[J_L]

None lol. Actually, I voted Avast,

[bellgamin]

-{ Quote: "Prevx hands down even though it's not on the list!" }-Absolutely AGREE!!! The list should include "Prevx" and "Other". Without those I was unable to vote.

[Page42]

-{ Quote: "The list should include "Prevx" and "Other". Without those I was unable to vote." }-
As I am unable to because I want to vote Vipre Premium, but the OP says no suites.
-{ Quote: "In terms of pure antivirus not suite/hips/firewall" }-
Agree that Prevx has very little impact on a system, and it was an oversight to not include it in this poll.

[jadinolf]

I think that avast! is the lightest and apparently many agree with me.

[mike21]

-{ Quote: "Prevx hands down even though it's not on the list! ;)

TH" }-


-{ Quote: "Absolutely AGREE!!! The list should include "Prevx" and "Other". Without those I was unable to vote." }-


I am really sorry about that. I copied the list from wikipedia and prevx was not included. Also luckily for me wiki listed 36 active AVs with real time protection and I had no room for "other" as the poll's option are 36 maximum, even though I thought the list was complete.

I will try contact a mod to see if he can edit the poll.

[BlueZannetti]

-{ Quote: "I will try contact a mod to see if he can edit the poll." }-Edit done. Prevx and Other now appear on the lower end of the list.

Blue

[mike21]

With the help of BlueZannetti two changes were made:

Vba32Antivirus replaced by "prevx"
and
eSafe replaced by "other"

Now both Vba32 & eSafe are included in the "other" vote.


bellgamin I hope you vote now :)

[Triple Helix]

-{ Quote: "Edit done. Prevx and Other now appear on the lower end of the list.

Blue" }-

Thanks Blue! :thumb:

TH

[Mr.PC]

http://www.raymond.cc/antivirus/ (http://www.raymond.cc/antivirus/)

[Daveski17]

My guess is that the Panda Cloud (free) is the lightest. MSE, Avira & avast! are probably not that far behind though.

[monkeybutt]

It would be nice if there was a group vote as allot of this is personal preference, there are many not just one.

I'd vote for Panda Cloud,Prevx,Avast,ESET.

[The Hammer]

I keep hearing about Vipre, but I really wouldn't know which is the lightest.

[mike21]

-{ Quote: "It would be nice if there was a group vote as allot of this is personal preference, there are many not just one.

I'd vote for Panda Cloud,Prevx,Avast,ESET." }-

The purpose of the poll is not to vote for your favorite anti-virus, that could be many, is to vote for the anti-virus that has the less impact in your system.

[idaho]

Emsisoft Anti Malware, not super light, but very effective for fight agaist all kind of malware. As firewall Privatefirewall.

[xandros]

avast

[dw426]

-{ Quote: "http://www.raymond.cc/antivirus/ (http://www.raymond.cc/antivirus/)" }-

Whatever "Coranti 2010" is, those are monstrous numbers.

[Daveski17]

I think that many people are voting for their favourite AV. I honestly don't know what the lightest AV is, or the 'lightness' of any particular AV on any particular system. It kind of reminds me of the introduction to Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being (where he discusses the meaning of lightness) LOL!

I use MSE myself (on desktop & laptop) but I have never known an AV to be as light as The Panda Cloud (freeware). I don't know any figures but I think it would take some beating in 'lightness'. ;D

[Francis93]

Voted for Avast!

[hayc59]

Voted=avast!

[Page42]

-{ Quote: "I think that many people are voting for their favourite AV. I honestly don't know what the lightest AV is, or the 'lightness' of any particular AV on any particular system." }-
I have thought the same thing, Daveski17, that maybe this poll is a popularity poll instead of what the OP intended. But that might not be the case. And lightness, if you suddenly have it when you didn't previously have it, is easy to detect. Vipre Premium is serving me well in that department... start ups seem faster, browsing seems faster, general pc operations seem faster. But I'm comparing it to two programs (FW & AV) that were on my sytems before. Point being, maybe it is the removal of a FW/HIPS that has given me this boost, and not an AV. Vipre feels much faster than avast to me, which I ran for 3½ years. But I have no numbers to refer to... just overall feel, which is subjective. :)

When you think about it, a poll about the lightest AV is destined to be a poll that is impacted by popularity. For example, the lightest might be an AV that very few people have tried, so it ends up with hardly any votes.

[Daveski17]

-{ Quote: "And lightness, if you suddenly have it when you didn't previously have it, is easy to detect. " }-

I'll say! I tried the Panda Cloud on my laptop after using McAfee for a few months. That was one BIG difference.

[ExtremeGamerBR]

Voted = Prevx!

[Osaban]

-{ Quote: "I think that many people are voting for their favourite AV. I honestly don't know what the lightest AV is, or the 'lightness' of any particular AV on any particular system." }-

I agree, the only way to find out on a particular system would be to test all the single engine companies out there, something that I would never do as lightness of an AV is important but detection is more important. Considering that most single engine AVs with excellent detection are also quite light nowadays, the choice of a light AV keeping in mind the lightness/high detection combination becomes critical when considering multi-engine versus single- engine AVs.

[Rampastein]

Voted for Avast, although I wouldn't list it as one of my favourite AVs.

[yongsua]

In my opinion,Avast! and Panda cloud are the lightest AVs.I tried Vipre before,it is damn light on resources too but unfortunately your CPU usage will rise to 100% occasionally or unexpectedly when you have Vipre installed.

[yongsua]

-{ Quote: "Maybe and I know that there many out there that are light, but I always goes back to Eset NOD32. I think it is not just light but also effective.

At least it became antivirus of the year...even... in the past. Still, hoping to regain its position and trophy. :D" }-


Same as me.I tried Bitdefender,Vipre,DefenseWall previously but I don't know why ESET(even it is only fairly light) and Avast!(even do not have superior detection) are still under my personal taste.No other Av can really replace both of them.:)

[iravgupta]

Lightest, as observed by me, in order -
1. NOD 32
2. avast
3. MSE - with scan incoming files only.
4. Norton Antivirus 2011

[yongsua]

-{ Quote: "Lightest, as observed by me, in order -
1. NOD 32
2. avast
3. MSE - with scan incoming files only.
4. Norton Antivirus 2011" }-

In my opinion,avast! should lighter than ESET.

[zfactor]

agreed. while i agree eset should def be in the lightest category i own both and eset is not as light as avast is. at least comparing the latest versions. also no matter how many times i have tested vipre i never found it as light as anyone says. i used it on a fairly new and pretty fast notebook with a 2.98 core 2 duo and 4gb ram and i saw it slow that down at times not all the time though like some. id say avast, norton 2011 and eset are the top three

[yongsua]

-{ Quote: "also no matter how many times i have tested vipre i never found it as light as anyone says. i used it on a fairly new and pretty fast notebook with a 2.98 core 2 duo and 4gb ram and i saw it slow that down at times not all the time though like some." }-

Exactly,I tested before and I get 100% CPU usage from Vipre whenever I open a program to run.

[mike21]

-{ Quote: "agreed. while i agree eset should def be in the lightest category i own both and eset is not as light as avast is. at least comparing the latest versions. also no matter how many times i have tested vipre i never found it as light as anyone says. i used it on a fairly new and pretty fast notebook with a 2.98 core 2 duo and 4gb ram and i saw it slow that down at times not all the time though like some. id say avast, norton 2011 and eset are the top three" }-

do you use the 64bit version of avast?

[J_L]

-{ Quote: "do you use the 64bit version of avast?" }-
64-bit version is very light as well.

[blasev]

EMSISOFT is the lightest dual engine av :thumb:
I hope someone back me up, rather lonely with 1 vote LOL

[mike21]

-{ Quote: "64-bit version is very light as well." }-

isn't the 64-bit version faster than the 32 bit?

I am asking because I bought new pc

[J_L]

-{ Quote: "isn't the 64-bit version faster than the 32 bit?

I am asking because I bought new pc" }-
Not sure, but 64-bit systems are usually faster than 32-bit ones.

[zfactor]

-{ Quote: "isn't the 64-bit version faster than the 32 bit?

I am asking because I bought new pc" }-

you may see a small difference but nothing really noticable one thing about 64bit apps is they usually use more memory and disk space than the 32bit version.

[tipo]

so, neither of you tried twister antivirus??? guess not.. ;)

[The Hammer]

-{ Quote: "EMSISOFT is the lightest dual engine av :thumb:
I hope someone back me up, rather lonely with 1 vote LOL" }-
Well when you stick your neck way out like that...LOL.

[Subgud]

MSE without a doubt

[Engineeringfun]

ESET Nod32 hands down. :)

[tipstir]

MSE 32-bit on Windows XP Pro SP3, Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit
MSE 64-bit on Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit

[clayieee]

In real life, panda cloud really is the lightest

[Daveski17]

-{ Quote: "In real life, panda cloud really is the lightest" }-

That's probably true. I couldn't believe how fast my laptop worked after running Panda Cloud Free. Unfortunately it was a bit 'false-positive city', so it only lasted a day. Shame though, it was incredibly light.

[toxinon12345]

I voted for ESET because it uses only 45 MB RAM and 0.5 GHz of processor speed

Somebody can equal that?

[J_L]

-{ Quote: "I voted for ESET because it uses only 45 MB RAM and 0.5 GHz of processor speed

Somebody can equal that?" }-
Add Disk I/O, and then we're talking.

Where did you get the GHz info from? 0.5 is a lot by the way, unless you mean MHz.

[monkeybutt]

-{ Quote: "The purpose of the poll is not to vote for your favorite anti-virus, that could be many, is to vote for the anti-virus that has the less impact in your system." }-

Umm, yah! that's what I listed, and it looks like the poll agrees with me for the most part.

[Osaban]

-{ Quote: "I keep hearing about Vipre, but I really wouldn't know which is the lightest." }-
I'm testing Vipre and Avast on two slow machines of similar specifications and they are certainly lighter and faster than Avira (I have Avira Premium on a fast machine). In terms of memory usage both Vipre and Avast are the same, Vipre seems to be faster than Avast though.

[SweX]

-{ Quote: "I'm testing Vipre and Avast on two slow machines of similar specifications and they are certainly lighter and faster than Avira (I have Avira Premium on a fast machine). In terms of memory usage both Vipre and Avast are the same, Vipre seems to be faster than Avast though." }-

Interesting, good to know :thumb:

[The Hammer]

-{ Quote: "I'm testing Vipre and Avast on two slow machines of similar specifications and they are certainly lighter and faster than Avira (I have Avira Premium on a fast machine). In terms of memory usage both Vipre and Avast are the same, Vipre seems to be faster than Avast though." }-
There are a number of benchmarks here. http://www.raymond.cc/antivirus/

[SweX]

-{ Quote: "There are a number of benchmarks here. http://www.raymond.cc/antivirus/" }-

But Raymond's tests wasn't made on a "slow snail" machine.

I got a Snail my self, therefore I find it great to know that Both Vipre and Avast runs pretty
smooth on low-end systems as well, just as my all-time fave one of course.

[clayieee]

As you can see on the Av comparative tests Panda and Avast got very high score though both have many false positive, but thats OK rather than it did not caught everything.

[SweX]

-{ Quote: "As you can see on the Av comparative tests Panda and Avast got very high score though both have many false positive, but thats OK rather than it did not caught everything." }-

Yes but that is very unusual for Avast :) But not for Panda. ;D

BTW did you post in the right thread?

[berryracer]

Who in the world rated Avast as the lightest!

Heck, NOD32 and even Eset Smart Security blow it out of the water when it comes to light system usage and performance.

Even Avira AntiVir is lighter on the system than Avast ::)

[trjam]

all 3 are very light but, one that I had found to drastically improve of late is MSE.

[littlebits]

-{ Quote: "Who in the world rated Avast as the lightest!

Heck, NOD32 and even Eset Smart Security blow it out of the water when it comes to light system usage and performance.

Even Avira AntiVir is lighter on the system than Avast ::)" }-

Avast is my favorite AV but I will have to agree with you on this.

On several different systems, I have tired almost all of the popular AV's.

Here is my findings to the lightest AV's:

1. Avira AntiVir
2. Nod32 (latest version) v.2.7 is lighter than Avira AntiVir.
3. Avast
4. Panda Cloud Antivirus
5. Microsoft Security Essentials
6. Norton 2011 (2010 version is lighter, 2009 even lighter than 2010)

Anything after #6 I wouldn't call light.

Thanks.;D

[Bob D]

Not so long ago Dr. Web and F-Prot were oft mentioned and praised as being the lightest.
Now I see only one vote for Dr. Web, and zero for F-Prot?
Ah, how the AV market changes...

[yongsua]

In my opinion,I still think that Avast! is lighter than ESET.

[zfactor]

i use and own both ess and avast and its pretty close between them but imo avast is for sure lighter overall then ess is. i am talking about the suite though not just the av.

[dazed1]

Avast.

[TOMxEU]

-{ Quote: "In real life, panda cloud really is the lightest" }-
I agree, I do not use it, but I am installing it on all PCs I fix, replacing my old choices like AVG, Avast and Avira and it runs really light, friends are satisfied so far.

[Blackcat]

-{ Quote: "EMSISOFT is the lightest dual engine av :thumb: LOL" }-
Have you tried Trustport? ;)

[solarpowered candle]

I doubt there is such a thing as a lite antivirus. They have always been a drag . I have an older machine and have tried pretty much all of them at some stage . Its rather like dragging a bucket of water behind your surf board.

[codylucas16]

After testing most of these antivirus I have come to the conclusion that Trend Micro is by far the lightest.

[J_L]

-{ Quote: "After testing most of these antivirus I have come to the conclusion that Trend Micro is by far the lightest." }-
That's a first. How did you come to that conclusion?

[codylucas16]

-{ Quote: "That's a first. How did you come to that conclusion?" }-


It was using a maximum of 15MB of ram. I felt absolutely no slowdown compared to before the install. Everything ran just as fast as it did before I installed it. It never used more than 1% CPU. The only thing that came close to how light it was for me was VIPRE.

[blasev]

-{ Quote: "Well when you stick your neck way out like that...LOL." }-

LOL ;D

[treehouse786]

i have tried prevx (paid) and avast 6 (free), i can confirm for me anyway, that avast is way lighter than prevx. dont believe me? use prevx paid and open a movie file in VLC player and time it, now do the same with avast. avast wins every time for me.

so i have now uninstalled prevx and gone naked for now, but will soon put avast back on, especially since the prevx beta is too late for me now.

anyone want a 30 day left prevx paid key?

[SweX]

-{ Quote: "dont believe me? use prevx paid and open a movie file in VLC player and time it, now do the same with avast. avast wins every time for me." }-
Hmmm... Is that how you test if the AV/AM is light or not? :what:

[treehouse786]

-{ Quote: "Hmmm... Is that how you test if the AV/AM is light or not? :what:" }-
isn't that the ultimate way of testing? using it on your on computer and noticing how long is takes to do things that you do quite often?

if there is a better way then please let me know:)

[yongsua]

Prevx should be lighter because it only uses cloud-based heuristic and doesn't need to be like traditional AVs.

[clayieee]

Panda cloud is the lightest, yeah maybe Avast and Eset is kinda light, but as time goes by and there are some instances that they use a lot of resources, but now, the one that really surprise me is how light this G data 2012 is, as light as Avast, considering it uses Bitdefender and Avast's Engine

[treehouse786]

-{ Quote: "Prevx should be lighter because it only uses cloud-based heuristic and doesn't need to be like traditional AVs." }-

have you even used prevx paid and avast? yes SHOULD be lighter but it is not. how do you define light? uses less ram and cpu cycles? or how fast it lets you get on with working with your comp? i choose the latter.

i don't care if an antivirus uses 300mb's of ram because i have plenty more to spare, i will never understand why people use ram resources to measure how 'light' a program is. all i care about is how fast i get my work done.

the above is not directed at you per say but to alot of others who think that way.

[SweX]

-{ Quote: "isn't that the ultimate way of testing? using it on your on computer and noticing how long is takes to do things that you do quite often?" }-

What I meant was that you need to do more testing than just start a movie in VLC ;) . That's one test but Prevx may be faster on other tasks were Avast is slower.

[SweX]

-{ Quote: "i don't care if an antivirus uses 300mb's of ram because i have plenty more to spare, i will never understand why people use ram resources to measure how 'light' a program is. all i care about is how fast i get my work done.
" }-
Well let's say like this, I currently got 512MB of RAM. Don't you think I care if my AV uses 300MB of RAM then? :)

[treehouse786]

-{ Quote: "Well let's say like this, I currently got 512MB of RAM. Don't you think I care if my AV uses 300MB of RAM then? :)" }-
impossibility as windows/antivirus would not allocate that much ram to the program if you only have that much ram. page file comes into use here

and that is why i said 'for me anyway' in my original post

[treehouse786]

-{ Quote: "What I meant was that you need to do more testing than just start a movie in VLC ;) . That's one test but Prevx may be faster on other tasks were Avast is slower." }-
but what if that's the only thing i use 1 of my computers for? well that and browsing the web. i have a different machine that i use to create videos and game with.

on this comp the thing i do the most is use VLC to test video files. avast is faster than prevx when a computer is used this way. dont get me wrong, i love prevx but i have come to learnt that when i actually time things, prevx is not as fast as i first thought.

now on my gaming pc, prevx is definitely faster than avast as the thing i do the most on my gaming pc is (surprise surprise) gaming. i think this due to the fact prevx does not scan on access alot (mostly on execute). avast scans most things it has not cached.

so different results for different situations. i use my non gaming pc regularly so right now (for me) avast is the faster product :thumb:

[SweX]

-{ Quote: "so different results for different situations. i use my non gaming pc regularly so right now (for me) avast is the faster product :thumb:" }-

No problem my friend. I understand and respect your views.
And if Avast is best for what you use that particular PC for then go with Avast of course. :thumb:

[SweX]

-{ Quote: "impossibility as windows/antivirus would not allocate that much ram to the program if you only have that much ram. page file comes into use here" }-

I used an AV once wich used around 250MB (for a short time) while updating the Virus signature database. And as a result the PC hang it self almost.

[treehouse786]

-{ Quote: "No problem my friend. I understand and respect your views.
And if Avast is best for what you use that particular PC for then go with Avast of course. :thumb:" }-
the respect is mutual :thumb:

[treehouse786]

-{ Quote: "I used an AV once wich used around 250MB (for a short time) while updating the Virus signature database. And as a result the PC hang it self almost." }-
lol thats quality, sounds like a bug tho ???

[SweX]

-{ Quote: "lol thats quality, sounds like a bug tho ???" }-
No it was by designed ;D

Actually it was like that during several version updates, so no it wasn't a bug unfortunately.

[JimboW]

Voted NOD32. I've tried most of them but NOD32 seems to be lightest on my rig.

[yongsua]

-{ Quote: "have you even used prevx paid and avast? yes SHOULD be lighter but it is not. how do you define light? uses less ram and cpu cycles? or how fast it lets you get on with working with your comp? i choose the latter.

i don't care if an antivirus uses 300mb's of ram because i have plenty more to spare, i will never understand why people use ram resources to measure how 'light' a program is. all i care about is how fast i get my work done.

the above is not directed at you per say but to alot of others who think that way." }-


But this topic is discussing about the "lightest AV" not "fastest AV".If no,may you explain to me what circumstance then only we call it as "Lightest AV"?I need your clarification.One more thing,I realize that Prevx will authorizes your files whenver you open a program,that's probably why you feel that your computer working slightly slower after the installation of Prevx.Thanks.

[treehouse786]

-{ Quote: "But this topic is discussing about the "lightest AV" not "fastest AV".If no,may you explain to me what circumstance then only we call it as "Lightest AV"?I need your clarification.One more thing,I realize that Prevx will authorizes your files whenver you open a program,that's probably why you feel that your computer working slightly slower after the installation of Prevx.Thanks." }-
i would love to know how you define 'light', please can you tell me?

[pajenn]

I've been using Prevx as my main AV for a while now, but decided to test avast! on my 64-bit Windows XP (secondary system on my primary computer). It's running smoothly - comparable to prevx in general performance. My initial impression is that prevx may be a little bit lighter in most respects, but its file authentication feature can really slow down the initial launch times of certain programs -- avast fares a lot better in that regard.

On the other hand, with avast! I'm getting (preemptive?) pop-ups suggesting I open certain applications in a sandbox even though I don't necessarily want to run them at all. For example, I was browsing a directory containing recent downloads, one of which was metapad.exe (a potential notepad replacement), when I received the attached alert (which requires a response) -- I didn't actually click on metapad. Is that normal with avast? I don't want to create a rule for it since it's just in a temporary directory for files while I decide if/when/where/how to install or run them, yet every time I move the mouse cursor over metapad.exe or certain other executables/installers, I get the screen shown in the attachment. (To be fair, Prevx also scans files in directories I'm browsing, but it only issues alerts if it detects malware and these alerts don't necessarily require interaction).

[treehouse786]

-{ Quote: "

personally i have the sandbox feature disabled as i run suspicious exe's in virtualbox so i might be wrong on this. could it not be because malware such as the LNK exploit dont need to be executed to run? or because avast scans on writes and reads and prevx mostly on execute?

[yongsua]

-{ Quote: "i would love to know how you define 'light', please can you tell me?" }-


That's what I don't know and that's why I asked you to clarify it in my previous post.

[sm1]

For me Eset is lightest:) No noticeable impact on system boot, faster downloading of updates and no drag while opening and using programs and browsing. Very apt security software for laptop:)

[treehouse786]

-{ Quote: "That's what I don't know and that's why I asked you to clarify it in my previous post." }-
i define 'light' as this- an antivirus program is 'light' if it does not slowdown the day to day activities of using a computer. the faster you can open programs, transfer files, watch videos, browse the web, the better.

i dont care what hardware resources it uses if it can do the above things (many programs sacrifice ram usage for a higher cpu usage anyway)

that is how i define light! :D

[pajenn]

I set avast's sandbox to auto-mode, so today I haven't received anymore of those annoying 'open this or that program in a sandbox' alerts that I described a few posts earlier. however, avast's resource use has gone up.

For some times now (many hours), AvastSvc.exe has taken up ~20% CPU and exerted ~8775-17550 K/s of disk load according to AnVir Task Manager. For comparison, firefox.exe is using ~20% CPU and ~118 K/s disk load while I'm typing this post. Earlier I also had vlc player on, which needed ~3% CPU and 28 K/s disk load to play some flv-video in one corner of my screen.

fwiw, those resources are free in the sense that CPU and memory are not maxing out, and the extra activity is not causing a major slowdown in the responsiveness of other programs, but it is causing my laptop's hard disk and fan to spin faster ( = more noise). Is there anyway in avast to see what's causing all this activity (so I could decide which avast shield to disable, or which processes to potentially exclude from monitoring, or maybe something got stuck in avast's auto-sandbox?

[yongsua]

-{ Quote: "I set avast's sandbox to auto-mode, so today I haven't received anymore of those annoying 'open this or that program in a sandbox' alerts that I described a few posts earlier. however, avast's resource use has gone up.

For some times now (many hours), AvastSvc.exe has taken up ~20% CPU and exerted ~8775-17550 K/s of disk load according to AnVir Task Manager. For comparison, firefox.exe is using ~20% CPU and ~118 K/s disk load while I'm typing this post. Earlier I also had vlc player on, which needed ~3% CPU and 28 K/s disk load to play some flv-video in one corner of my screen.

fwiw, those resources are free in the sense that CPU and memory are not maxing out, and the extra activity is not causing a major slowdown in the responsiveness of other programs, but it is causing my laptop's hard disk and fan to spin faster ( = more noise). Is there anyway in avast to see what's causing all this activity (so I could decide which avast shield to disable, or which processes to potentially exclude from monitoring, or maybe something got stuck in avast's auto-sandbox?" }-

I hope you can share you issue at here:http://forum.avast.com/
They will assist you once you started a new thread.

[pajenn]

-{ Quote: "I hope you can share you issue at here:http://forum.avast.com/
They will assist you once you started a new thread." }-

I'll get to it later - I need to register for that forum and don't want to get into that now.

I took a bunch of pics of AnVir Task Manager's tray info balloon as it displays the processes using most resources, and the second pic is from Task Manager.

Despite the high resource use, avast is still running smoothly, and I'm not experiencing a slowdown of other tasks or in general use of my laptop, so if this is just avast making use of spare resources, then I'm cool with it, but it is alarming.

[mike21]

-{ Quote: "That's what I don't know and that's why I asked you to clarify it in my previous post." }-

the AV that has the least impact on your system. I think you shouldn't care about ram MB that much. Even with 1 GB of ram, to try and save some MBs with your AV is useless, its like you keep it in your desk's draw

[John0]

Well I have used both Avast ,Symantec Norton AntiVirus/Norton 360 which I found these lightest Anti virus Software . Currently I am using Avast which is lightest one for me .

[yongsua]

-{ Quote: "i define 'light' as this- an antivirus program is 'light' if it does not slowdown the day to day activities of using a computer. the faster you can open programs, transfer files, watch videos, browse the web, the better.

i dont care what hardware resources it uses if it can do the above things (many programs sacrifice ram usage for a higher cpu usage anyway)

that is how i define light! :D" }-


Thank you.:)

[Hungry Man]

I have 4GB of RAM and MSE only ever takes up (at most) 70MB and usually sites at 60.

[J_L]

Since you have so much RAM, how important do you think it is to measure performance by its amount? People should seriously use CPU and Disk I/O as benchmarks instead.

[Hungry Man]

I have nothing to compare it's at 0.... I saw it go to 3 once but it's been over a minute and 0 change.

If you'd like me to benchmark differently tell me how.

RAM is important to me since I have my pagefile disabled. So even if AV's have a minor difference of only 40MB or so it matters to me.

[J_L]

Look at idle CPU usage and average CPU usage in Resource Monitor. Also observe total I/O under Disk.

[Hungry Man]

Read ~10,000 B/sec for I/O and it disappeared soon after.

And under CPU it's 0.00 average. 0 CPU. 33 threads.

[pajenn]

-{ Quote: "For some times now (many hours), AvastSvc.exe has taken up ~20% CPU and exerted ~8775-17550 K/s of disk load according to AnVir Task Manager." }-

fwiw, the high resource use by AvastSvc.exe has subsided for now. It stopped around the time of the last update earlier this week, although it may have been unrelated. The culprit behind the resource use was the File Shield component (maybe it was doing an initial scan of all my files in the background?) I still see high resource usage by Avast (similar to the stats above) during start-up when Avast checks for updates.

[treehouse786]

i wait for the day when antivirus programs have a setting where you can let it have how ever much ram you desire :P

[Hungry Man]

I tested Avast out... put my computer to a crawl. I didn't understand why it should since I didn't max it out or anything. I have a pretty powerful computer too.

I currently have Comodo + MSE and together they use very little.

[ams963]

Lightest antivirus is avast. I'm using it in my netbook of ram 1 GB. And my pc is running more smoothly than ever.

[poison]

-{ Quote: "I tested Avast out... put my computer to a crawl. I didn't understand why it should since I didn't max it out or anything. I have a pretty powerful computer too." }-

Same issue for me. I find Norton AV to be light on every set up I've installed it on and it has great detection. I currently use Nod32 and have for years now but when my subscription runs out I think that I'll have a tough choice to make between the two.