AV-Comparatives Performance Test - April 2018

Discussion in 'other anti-virus software' started by Spartan, May 9, 2018.

  1. shadek

    shadek Registered Member

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    As always, making use of your nickname. I completely agree with you.

    To be noted, I am a hardcore gamer. I've come to the conclusion after all these years that 0,5 slower loading times (theoretically speaking) isn't an issue. What is an issue is if the AV flag the game as false positive, or worse, make the game crash. Doesn't happen with WD but has happened with Kaspersky, Bitdefender, Panda, Emsisoft... the list can be made longer. To be fair, no, I haven't tried the named vendors the last two or three years. It doesn't make any sense trying them either anymore. I'd rather have WD slow down loading by 0,5 seconds than having games crashing when playing a three hour session. When put into that perspective, what is 0,5 seconds really?
     
    Last edited: May 12, 2018
  2. Bill_Bright

    Bill_Bright Registered Member

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    I mean let's be realistic. Contrary to what many want us to believe, the developers at Microsoft are not stupid, or lousy developers. I cannot speak for the marketing people or some of the executive decisions being made, but the developers really are top notch. They would not put out a scanner that bogs down an SSD based i9 system with 64GB of RAM! That just would not make any sense.

    Now for sure, I am NOT saying WD is the best there is. But what I am saying is it is all most people need for their primary scanner. And regardless a person's primary scanner of choice, every user should have a secondary scanner just to make sure the primary, or the user (again, the weakest link in security) didn't let something slip by. I note even the toughest security is easily thwarted if the user opens the door and lets the bad guy in. So I generally recommend Malwarebytes for that. And all I can say is since I started using MSE on my W7 systems, and WD when I migrated all to W10, Malwarebytes has not found anything WD, or me, let in.

    I take that back (and speaking of false positives). Malwarebytes has found a couple "wanted" and "safe" PUPs (potentially unwanted programs) I purposely installed.

    And for sure, I am not promoting or suggesting everyone go with WD. If you like what you are using then great! Use that. I really don't care. Just keep it and Windows updated, and don't be click happy. But just because you (speaking to the crowd) like an alternative better, that does NOT mean WD is a bad solution - a fact I fear many seem to disregard due to biases against MS. :( Because as Phoenix correctly (IMO) noted,
    And protection is what it really is all about.

    Well, FWIW, that's my real name. And I'm so "bright" my dad used to call me "Sonny"! ;)
     
  3. shadek

    shadek Registered Member

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    Oh my god. :argh:
     
  4. xxJackxx

    xxJackxx Registered Member

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    The reason for this is the fact that I know of a lot of folks that refuse to run AV at all because it "slows down the computer". If you're willing to run without for that reason you are willing to run a less effective product if it is faster. Of course not everyone will agree with that thinking but it will persist with some regardless of what we think about it.
     
  5. anon

    anon Registered Member

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    Yes, it's proven continuously every Patch Tuesday!
    https://www.wilderssecurity.com/threads/bork-tuesday-any-problems-yet.370217/
     
  6. jadinolf

    jadinolf Registered Member

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    I have ESET on all 5 computers and have no intention of changing.
    You may have seen this before.
     

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  7. roger_m

    roger_m Registered Member

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    My experience over many years has been, that if I keep Windows and vulnerable software updated and I'm not click happy, then it is extremely hard to get infected. I know that even if I use no antivirus, or other security software, it is highly unlikely that I will get infected. As well as my own experience, I'm not even the slightest bit paranoid, when it comes to computer security. Because of this, performance is more important to me, than protection. I don't want to have to buy a faster computer, so that security software won't slow down my computers. I'd much rather use security software, that only causes an extremely minimal drop in system performance.

    In the case of Windows Defender, it does make my computer run slower and this is the sole reason why I don't use it. Of course, I do recognise, that this is not the case for everyone. If it didn't slow down my computers, I would use it on all of them. I am not someone who feels the need to bash Microsoft, or thinks that because Microsoft made it, it much be bad. For example, I've been using Windows 10 on multiple computers, since it was first released (although it's not perfect, I certainly prefer it to Windows 7) and always let Windows install all updates it finds, rather than waiting to read feedback from others and skipping some updates, in case they cause problems.
     
  8. TairikuOkami

    TairikuOkami Registered Member

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    Indeed, I am not gonna spend another $1000, just so I can run Windows Defender (or the new Paint/Calc). Some other AVs do not affect performance so badly, actually not at all.
    First thing, I always do after setup, is disabling Windows Defender (including all 5 services) and System Guard (since 1803). The system starts moving swiftly again, just by this alone.
     
  9. mekelek

    mekelek Registered Member

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    unless the overall security it provides is miles ahead of the competition and you have to sacrifice performance for safety.
    which ofcourse does not happen when it comes to WD so it's absurd.
     
  10. TairikuOkami

    TairikuOkami Registered Member

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    Malware is overrated, 10 is pretty secure by itself. My laptop used by mine 70 years mother is well protected, it was run without AV for months and not even adware, but I wanted something to detect real malware, so I all I needed was just a signature based AV, I do not need cloud, web protection and other nonsense, which only slows down PC, just something to cover basics.
     
  11. ance

    ance formerly: fmon

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    +1 :thumb:
     
  12. mekelek

    mekelek Registered Member

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    the goose doesn't need a hat either when his head is down in the sand.
     
  13. Osaban

    Osaban Registered Member

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    I couldn't agree more. When buying a new computer, most people go for the fastest machine one can afford, everything about the state of the art in computer technology is about speed, computing speed, therefore a software that slows down performance is a big issue for many people, and I am not a gamer, but still, I enjoy fast performance per se. I said it and I'll say it again, I have a Samsung and an Asus with i7 CPUs, different brands, similar hardware, same software and Windows Defender slows both machines down, not to a crawl, but visibly enough compared to Avira...
     
  14. Bill_Bright

    Bill_Bright Registered Member

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    Years ago, that was often true. But AV developers have gotten smarter and learned how to tune and tweak their scanners to be more efficient and/or work better in the background. Operating systems manage resources better. And of course, hardware has gotten much more powerful too. So IMO, that is not a valid excuse any longer, except in very rare scenarios/exceptions. And besides, Freedom Isn't Free! I shouldn't have to lock my front door or my truck either. Locking the doors slows down entry to and egress from my house and truck. But I am still going to lock them.
    Not sure if being sarcastic or not but the fact of the matter is, most of the nearly 700 million W10 users have never had any problems with updates that a simple reboot does not fix. WU has never broken any of the 6 systems here. And those systems that come into the shop the user claimed WU broke tend to be systems heavily modified by the user. That is, they thought they were smarter than the Windows developers so they dinked with the default settings.

    Considering virtually each and every one of the 1.6 billion Windows computers out there become unique within the first couple minutes of first boot (due to user security, networking, hardware, desktop and other user configurations), I think they do a great job.
    I agree and that is another testament to the developers at MS. Now if only MS marketing and executives (the bean counters) would just let the developers have a free hand, things would be even better.
    I agree that W10 is a very secure OS by itself, but totally disagree about malware being overrated. In fact, it is even more malicious than ever - IF it manages to get past all our defenses - easily done if the user lets the bad guy in.

    As far as Windows running slower with WD enabled, except for monster file transfers to the boot drive, I truly believe the performance hit most people are actually seeing is because they want to see a hit with WD, and no hit with their preferred solution. That is, they want to believe their non-Microsoft product is better. Sorry - just going by what we see here in the shop.

    This is an interesting video WD haters will surely love. It shows how WD enabled impacts performance on many tasks. And it does impact performance. But typically it is just by a couple seconds, if that. Now understand this compares tasks with WD enabled to WD disabled - that is, with no anti-malware product running. It does not show the performance impact with alternative solutions running - an important point to keep in mind because surely any security program that is doing its job of constantly scanning files and the behavior of running code in system resources will have some impact.

    I think AV-Compartives should run all those same performance tests with no AV running and use that as the baseline instead of WD.

    It should also be noted that Microsoft is constantly improving WD. If it has been awhile since you last tried it, and you are not really happy with your current solution, I would urge you to give Windows Defender an honest and unbiased shot. You might just be surprised that it is not as bad as many want you to believe.
     
  15. IBK

    IBK AV Expert

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    WD is not taken as baseline.
     
  16. Bill_Bright

    Bill_Bright Registered Member

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    My bad. I note WD is often called the base line or "basic" solution. Either way, I think it would be good if all testing labs tested with no security running too. If one solution is adding 10 seconds to the transfer speed of a monster file, that sounds huge. But if other programs are adding several seconds too, that may not be so huge.
     
  17. TairikuOkami

    TairikuOkami Registered Member

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    Is it really disabled (all its services) or is it just turned off with GPO? Because that can still affect score, even of other AVs. That would explained those messed up results. :doubt:
     
  18. Bill_Bright

    Bill_Bright Registered Member

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    What messed up results?

    Pretty sure once disabled in Group Policy Editor and you reboot, services are all stopped too. But if not, it still represents a level playing field for the other products.
     
  19. ttomm1946

    ttomm1946 Registered Member

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    Good for Mcafee also....It's very light on my computer..And everything works..
     
  20. daman1

    daman1 Registered Member

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    I agree, I'll take a little hit on performance any day for top notch protection!
     
  21. clocks

    clocks Registered Member

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    Looking at the test results reported from several outlets over the past year, there are a lot of AV companies that offer top notch protection. So I don't think it is odd that people are also looking at something lightweight to help differentiate.
     
  22. roger_m

    roger_m Registered Member

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    When it's comes to performance, it's no so much about having the absolute best performance. What matters to me, is that the antivirus I use, will never make my computer run slowly. The only exception to this, is that I can put up with reduced performance when running a scan. Some antiviruses, make my computer run slowly at times and some make my computer run slowly all the time. Neither case is acceptable to me.
     
  23. Spartan

    Spartan Registered Member

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    I share the same opinion as you. I practice safe browsing habits by using an Adblocker with many filters and don't use any cracked software, all genuine paid for. Performance comes to me as no. 1 when it comes to an AV as I probably can run without an AV but just like having the extra peace of mind.
     
  24. guest

    guest Guest

    The folder open instantly of course... but the time the file's icons are displayed is HUUUGE compared to other AV...you can see the green bar crawling...as reported below...

    This issue exist since Win8, was reported countless times , and has nothing to do with hardware setup, i have 3 machines (different specs, from i3 to i5 8thgen with 6 to 8gb RAM ), same issues even after a clean install on each of them.

    No one can't discard the issue and say it doesn't exist or it is one particular case...

    I suspect the issue is because WD always scan "on access" and maybe its cloud checking. Once the said folder was opened once, the issue disappear for the session but reappears at every boot.

    (an option to scan on execution would be greatly appreciated and may solve the case)
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 14, 2018
  25. Minimalist

    Minimalist Registered Member

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    Yes, I also thought it was something like that. On access and also on write scan could IMO be optimized to improve performance.
     
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