On a quest for the best protection & least resource hog

Hi yall, just found this forum yesterday...great place.

Over the last year I have ran dozens of different combos of firewalls, HIPS, and anti-malware suites. I have a laptop and desktop, and both are fast and have 4GB RAM, but I game sometimes and I just like a responsive PC in general.

So far the best combo I have found, and what I'm running on my laptop is PC Tools Firewall Plus 4.0 and ThreatFire together as an "on-guard" solution. I also have PC Tools Spyware Doc + Anti-Virus which I run once a week or as needed to supplement this. So far I haven't had any problems, as I am pretty savvy on the web and with downloads, and we have a router firewall too. Overall in Vista PC Tools FW+ and ThreatFire only use about 9MB of memory and there is a definite responsiveness that I did not have using other apps. Is anyone else using a setup like this?

As a FYI, the other combos I've tried are:
-Comodo Firewall (free) with Defense + enabled
-BitDefender Int. Sec. 2008 (with and without ThreatFire)
-Spyware Doctor + Anti-Virus with Comodo FW
-Spyware Doctor + Anti-Virus with ThreatFire and PCTools FW+
-Trend Micro Int. Sec. Pro 2008 (with and without ThreatFire)
-Avast Home v4 + Comodo FW
-Avast Home v4 + Vista FW (with and without ThreatFire)
-Others I'm sure I am forgetting now.

My favorite app is definitely Comodo Free FW, but even with a fast PC it uses a good deal of resources, along the lines of 15MB+. I liked Bit Defender's suite, and it was relatively light on resources, but the manual scans took forever to complete. Trend was a nightmare to set up and not as good as previous versions when it comes to resources. Avast is a sweet free app. Anyone have opinions on what they feel is the best protection to resource utilization compromise?

To conclude my very wordy post (LOL) does anyone know, other than Trend, if any anti-malware apps have a manual scanner that will shut down the computer when completed? I loved that feature, as I could do a manual scan when going to bed and it would just shut down if nothing was found.

Take er easy.
Dave

 

"On a quest for the best protection & least resource hog"

Sandbox/Virtualization.

"Retunil" - "Shadow-Defender" + Windows FW

/post

 

I agree, take your choice of antivirus (I use Avast Home set on High), add SandboxIE (check around here and at SandboxIE's website for suggested settings for best protection), add Returnil, and that's about as light as it gets IMHO. If you want a little extra "oomph" such as a behaviour blocker, and don't need/want a full fledged firewall, use Threatfire and add an outbound rule as described in this thread: https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=183020&highlight=Threatfire outbound rule.

Just an opinion from a guy who has gone through hell with HIPS and trying to make that "digital Fort Knox"

 

Why worry about 15MB when you have 4000MB RAM? By the way, this relates to memory usage, not processor usage.

 

Thx for the suggestions. Virtualization is an interesting concept and definitely worth researching some more. As a result of my research on here and other forums, for now I'm going to stick with Threat Fire + Vista firewall running 24/7 and use primarily Spyware doctore + AV for on-demand scans.

MrBrian, my reasoning is irrelevant for purposes of this post; I was asking for people's opinions on anti-malware and not my PC config. And fwiw, resources can refer to CPU, GPU, RAM, or any other component that contributes to system performance. Responsiveness can be a result of any of those components.

I have to say, this forum has a lot of posters who are aggressive in their wording to say the least. That takes away from the feel of being helpful, which I would dare to say is the purpose of this board to begin with. My 2 cents. Have fun.

 

Hi stretch and welcome to Wilders .

I was going to post the other day, but I figured you might get a little more help. I also don't use my machine for online gaming, so I really can't do you much good. There is a member here by the name of Kees1958 who has tried a bunch of different setups. I believe his son's machine is used for gaming so you might want to try and search for some of his posts.

Also, as far as an AV goes, Avira Antivir has excellent detection rates and is light. They have both paid and free versions.

 

"I have to say, this forum has a lot of posters who are aggressive in their wording to say the least. That takes away from the feel of being helpful, which I would dare to say is the purpose of this board to begin with. My 2 cents. Have fun."

Lol, don't worry, they mean well What you have here is a forum chock-full of people who have been playing the security game for years and who have tested every program under the sun. These people test security apps more thoroughly than some militaries test their new weapons (frightening but true). You're just going to have to try things out on your own system and see how it works out, because you're only going to get opinions and advice about other peoples setups on their systems, which may crash and burn your own.

 

Hi

How was MrBrian's post aggressive? It seemed like relevant advice to me and a perfectly legitimate comment.

 

Hi

Well there's no best but many different combinations which are very light. To see what works best for you you should probably try some apps.

I have to say though, I doubt PC Tools Firewall with ThreatFire is the lightest combo. And I thought PC Tools Spyware Doc + Anti-Virus had processes which was always on, even if you want to use it as an on-demand scanners.

For light real-time AV, Dr Web and AntiVir are the lightest.

If I were you I would replace Spyware Doc with AV with AntiVir/Dr Web and SAS and/or MBAM and/or Asquared.

And on my laptop Comodo Firewall is really light.

Most suites are not the best choice if you want your computer to be as fast as possible.

And I agree with dw426, you could add a policy sandbox/light virtualisation such as DefenseWall, GesWall, Sandboxie, Returnil, etc.

 

Your own post (not MrBrian) brought up the fact that your computer has 4GB ram...

AND

Your own post (not MrBrian) also brought up the fact that you gauge resource usage based on 15MB of RAM usage...

Yes, you certainly are aggressive in your wording.

MrBrian based his comments on your OWN words. It is unfortunate that you mis-understood his comments which, as I read them, are clearly an honest attempt on his part to clarify the issue in order to help.

By the way, on my computer Comodo FP (w/D+) is well-matured (from the standpoint that it has extensive & detailed personalized configs).

As of 830PM today (Pacific time), Process Explorer (a well-known task manager) shows that CFP's 2 visible processes (cfp.exe & cmdagent.exe) have used just over 30 minutes of cpu time, in proportion to just over 13 hours of system idle time, in just over 15 total hours of computer operation. IMO that is relatively low cpu usage for a combined FW+HIPS with extensive detailed configs.

NOTE: the above data should be viewed in context with the fact that I have a disgustingly slow cpu - 1.7Ghz.

However, SystemSafetyMonitor (SSM) + PCT Firewall might be a tad lighter than CFP. In fact, if you are using an SPI/NAT router, then you could go with SSM (with network settings configured to monitor outgoing) and NO firewall -- that would be even lighter.