AV Comparatives Oct 2013 Performance Test for Security Suites

Completely agree. We get more complaints from Bitdefender products slowing down a users system (due to the default settings) than any other security suite. In fact, you rarely here a complaint from a Norton or Kaspersky user. Bitdefender complaints are about 20x these rival products.

We've even had business users who have bought multiple licenses claim it's slow across every workstation.

Now, I'm not saying it can't be configured to be less aggressive, but from the initial install, with default settings, it's definitely the brand that most our customers complain slows their PC. Some of them go nuts about it

 

I am comparing AVAST 2014 FREE and ESET NOD32 antivirus 7.

Yes, AVAST is a lot lighter on RAM. But on performance issues, ESET is much lighter. Maybe you have a powerful computer so you don't notice any difference. I am just using a 2011 model netbook. 2GB, Intel Atom N455

 

RAM usage is meaningless unless you're really short on RAM e.g. 2GB or less RAM installed. Otherwise it does not matter at all.

What matters is the effect on system performance, and this is unrelated to RAM usage.

 

Yes, that's right. If AV has all modules and signatures loaded into memory it can access what it needs quicker than from a disk. This way impact on system performance is smaller...

 

Or the performance is very bad because the AV does not make use of the RAM, only to pacify those, who check the AV's memory consumption in the taskmanager all the time.

 

Exactly. I have 16GB of RAM. Because I want programs to use it. Not to complain that they do.

 

If you were comparing eset with some AVs like bitdefender,i could say you are completely right but AVAST has very lowv system impact.on weaker machines I ve tested both and I found Avast more responsive.
ESET has changed alot since V5 and although it is still fast,but it s not that light anymore.
Avast 2014 has also changed ,it is simpler,lighter ,quicker and more responsive.
dont forget that I m still a fan of ESET products and I will go for it if I wanna pay for an AV.

 

Exactly. I find it funny when people correlate low RAM usage with lightness.

 

Just like with phones.

 

offcourse they are two different issues

light on system resources(ram &cpu)
light on system performance

an antivirus may use less resorces but it can slow your system 's responsiveness

In my opinion,"resource usage" is important for weak systems.but on powerful computers ,"performance impact" has the edge
("the resource usage" has effect on other issues such as battery consumption.)

 

Really?

So theres someone out there finding WSA heavy on their machine and Forticlient light.(no pun intended)

I doubt it..

 

I worry more about CPU usage rather than RAM usage.

 

Let me correct you both. What makes an AV/IS feel slow to a human being is 99% of time read/write data to your HDD. Not CPU or RAM.

 

If your system has adequate RAM installed, then RAM usage by an antivirus is not going to effect system performance at all. The amount of CPU and disk usage used by antivirus are what determines the effect on system performance, and on the whole this has nothing to do with RAM use, with the exception sometimes AVs using more RAM will have less disk usage (therefore causing less of an impact on system performance) then ones use less RAM, due to the fact that the ones using less RAM are keeping less data in memory and because of this need more disk access and data which could have been kept in memory needs to be reread as the AV chose not to keep it in RAM in order to use less memory.

 

When I had forticlient installed with 4gb ram, I could feel that it was there and so this was due to the disk usage/cpu more than the amount of ram being used.

I stand corrected thanks for the detailed info. I shall be less dismissive in future when considering a new av etc and actually try it out first.

Steering clear of forticlient for now anyway.

 

@ RAM usage: So, just because [OT]Chrome[/OT] is fast, it must be using very little resources?