Really Frustrating AV Apps Pulling On System Resources

I don't know what it is about the design of AV apps that most companies are following, other then the fact that most boxes today have quite a bit of memory, on average 3-4GB and the companies figure they can bring on more goodies without ill effect, but I'm not seeing it that way at all, for myself and other people's systems.

My laptop with 4GB of ram, but my CPU is 1.6ghz, AV apps lag the system a bit, making it less responsive at times as well as the apps. Things aren't as snappy when opening and I'm really frustrated trying to find a good AV that isn't causing problems.

I always seem to be running into the challenge of first finding an app that isn't affecting system and application performance, then doing a good job second.

When I'm fixing computers for people, which is my job, I typically place on either Avast or Avira free versions, but even between these two they do cause a lag. Avast has been so bad for me that I typically don't even bother with it anymore for customers and just go straight for Avira.

Now for my own personal box, I need a little more then just what free offers, since it's a business laptop, I can't afford to take a chance on the free AVs.

So that led me to GData, from what I can see this app along with TrustPort have the best detections, but lets face it, at the cost of two engines they have a pretty good pull on the system.

So I've tried all these below in XP, but I've yet to try Panda or KAS in Win7, all of these below caused a bit of lag in XP.

Panda Antivirus Pro 2011
Panda Cloud Pro
Avira Free
Avast 5 Free
Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2011

Well, I just don't know, my problem is I get my head to stuck in the AV-Comparative reports, which right now places the order as TrustPort, Panda and GData.

Maybe Panda Antivirus Pro 2011 will be good enough and not cause me problems in Win7 with the lag that GData does.

 

Hi DasFox,

you forget one:
Panda Cloud free.

It's nearly the same as Panda Cloud Pro, but with no Behaviour Analysis.
But it's very fast and it need's no updates like Avira.

Perhaps this could be a program for you.
In tests they are really good (and it's free).

 

Well I said Pro and they're pretty much the same, as you mentioned...

But definitely not for a business system, that's clearly out of the question.

I'm to the point now I'm thinking of going the route of HIPS and not worrying so much about AV apps...

 

why not just run whatever app makes you happy and set its realtime component to scan on execute? i mean, that's plenty adequate for most users and if you're worried, you can supplement it with regularly scheduled full system scans. it's all about being sensible.

 

Do you know if G Data InternetSecurity 2011 has this option to set it's real time to scan on execute? But then the problem is when you surf the net, nastys can be dragged in, so how will this effect the real time protection?


Well because it's getting down to what I mentioned, something that isn't bringing the system and apps down and also doing a decent job and that's not an easy combination to find, especially for mission critical usage in business.

But as I said I have tried the latest Panda Antivirus Pro 2011 in Win7, maybe that will do the trick.

 

Yes, I also run Panda Pro 2011. It's much faster than GData and you can run it on business PCs because you have paid for it.
I have Windows 7 64 and there is no problem.

 

re: g-data, i'm not sure, i've never really spent any time with it.

if a threat needs to be executed, then your realtime scanner will catch it (at least, that's how it should work) if in doubt, you can always use the on-demand scanning capability of any given product to do a cursory scan of a questionable file. lots of products won't perform behavioral analysis until a file is executed. so even if the definitions or cloud or whatever says the file's not malicious, behavioral analysis can identify and block execution of a file that does screwy/malicious things.

if you're concerned about other web-based attacks, you can always use a sandbox for browsing or disable scripting, etc. you can also take advantage of free DNS services offered by sunbelt or norton or opendns to block access to hosts of malicious content.

most importantly though (imo), you can ensure your machine is fully patched and you're running as the least-privileged user possible.

ultimately, it's up you to determine whether the slightly elevated risk of infection is worth losing less performance by scanning only the stuff with the highest risk of causing an infection (executables). to me, in my own situation, it's worth it.

there's lots of good stuff out there, most things have full-featured 30 day trials, which will help you get an idea of whether something fits your needs the best or if something else might instead.

 

I've tried a lot of AVs recently looking for fast performance. You might want to try ESET NOD32.

 

You need to give Trustport at least several re-boots to fingerprint your system, then even with two engines selected it should, IME, run very light.

 

Yup it's really light on my system, I still get consecutive 3-5 ticks of 0% CPU usage on my laptop (this machine is quite ancient), with ESS and SpyShelter running in realtime. However ESS uses around 60-65MB of memory (and about the same VM size).

 

There are many users on Wilder's who wouldn't dream of not having Antivirus protection, but it's really not a crazy idea. Just run your system naked and use virus total/bit defender free edition when you need to scan that executable. Have a couple of on demand scanners like SAS and MBAM to run scheduled midnight scans every night. Antivirus vendors do a great job scaring you into using their products but clearly if you're a Wilders member and are a safe surfer, why should you need something always running? I have friends who go without resident AV protection and they've never experienced any hassles with their PC. Maybe run something like Safeonline to keep your info safe.

With HIPs you're simply trading one headache without another (do I have your permission to allow this post to complete?) and (do I have your permission to allow this poster to go on?) what you're looking for is just a smooth (do I have your permission to allow this poster to finish his sentence?) experience.

 

Not trying to steal this thread, but running without a AV guard is risky unless you have an on-demand virus scanner and some sort of browser guard such as a sandbox and even then you are still open to portable device infection unless further steps are taken.

Let's say, you need a patch and a friend has it and puts it on a USB stick that's infected. Unless you have the autoplay for USB disabled, there is a good chance you will share more than the patch.

I would NEVER run a PC without active protection if I used it to buy online or do banking. Even with all the protective measures you can acquire, there are those working right now to circumvent them for either profit or mischief.

A little paranoid,
SourMilk out

 

I'm really surprised that you feel G-data as being somewhat of a drag on the system. I have a Toshiba laptop with a pentium 1.73gHz with 2GB (hardly cutting edge by any measure) with G-data 2011 installed and I've found the performance quite snappy. About the only thing that is a performance drag is when Web Guard is enabled- the internet becomes intolerably slow (but I've found that this is the case with most web guards).

In you case though, let me suggest that you try Online Armor ++. Very good protection at minimal system burden. On your system it should fly.

 

Try ESET NOD32 Antivirus. It is the lightest in my opinion (especially on boot time, I am 100% sure it is the fastest on that area). It hardly consumes CPU time. Don't let it fool you by it's quite high idle physical memory usage, in reality (both virtual and physical memory) it is really light. And it's peak memory usage is really close to it's idle memory usage. (In other words most programs use like 20 in idle and >100 in load, ESET uses 50 in idle and 60 in load.)

 

I just came across this article regarding AntiMalware applications 28 were tested) and their impact on diverse types of system load (18 separate benchmarks).

I don't believe I've ever seen anything as extensive as this!

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

 

Why don't u try Vipre? it only uses 3 proc's very light on memory usage. average i/o.

 

Yes, NOD32 is very light. I'm using it now. Prevx is very light too.

 

I've had my PC on for about 7 hours now, and the two (and only) Norton IS 2011 processes use the following:

Process 1) - 1:46 CPU TIME - 6,044 K MEMORY - 669,794,544 I/O READ - 304,296,775 I/O Write
Process 2) - 0:10 CPU TIME - 5,386 K MEMORY - 5,229,511 I/O READ - 7,416 I/O Write

The boot difference is about 2-3 seconds. App loading time seems normal (normal being without an antivirus) everything else seems just fine to me. Haven't had a hiccup yet.

Cheers, hope you find something suitable!

 

Thank you Panda seems to be a memory monster ...

 

Something I have been testing lately on a few lower performing "low risk" laptops is a combination of Immunet or ClamAV (Immunet) Free along with Prevx Facebook edition.

This is a very light combination that has really brought these machines back to life. If Immunet continues to increase their detection abilities in the free version this could be a very viable solution. *I have paid for Immunet Pro licenses - I just have a few issues now that keep me from adding Pro to the mix.