Netbook Av's

Got myself a netbook just before Christmas and have been trying several different free AV choices, but I was curious if anyone has a lot of experience using netbooks along with an AV or knows of any sites that rank AV's per their RAM usage and drag on the system?

Obviously you want a really light AV on a netbook due to the lower resources and processor speeds. I'm using MSE on it now, but other suggestions? Sites that rank per processor and RAM usage?

Thanks in advance for any input guys.

 

I use Panda Cloud Pro on my wifes netbook.

 

Thanks...anyone else? Anyone know of any tests that have been done to find the lowest overhead AV when it comes to RAM usage and processor drag?

 

If you are willing to pay for good softwares just like I do- prevx
if not- avast free is light and so is immunet

 

Thanks. I've tried Prevx and while it's alright, not sure I would use it as my only AV protection. It's a good supporting cast product, obviously not on a netbook though with limited RAM and resources.

Might try Avast later. I wouldn't let Immunet near any of my machines. I've tried it before and in my tests it has failed miserably.

Thanks for the suggestions though.

 

I understand your point.. I have a netbook where I only have spyshelter and hitman pro.. as realtime protection will suck a little from the resource I chose that setup..Its been more than a year no problems at all with that setup. but for systems where I have 4 gb ram then I go with realtime avs or good firewall and hips combo..

 

For my wife and daughter's HP netbooks with 1GB of memory I'm just running CIS 5 and it seems to be working fine for them. I've got a Lenovo tablet netbook with 2 GB memory and I dumped everything to just run Prevx.

 

Wow...really? I have CIS on my desktop, but wouldn't think to try it on my netbook with 1 GB of RAM. You say it works fine though huh? Maybe I'll give it a try.

 

Immunet is a back up scanner to your AV. Not meant to be the main one. So you can use them side by side.

 

Yeah, not thanks. Didn't like Immunet at all. It was not great in my tests whatsoever.

Not to mention I don't really want layered protection on a netbook with 1 GB or RAM. Just looking for a single good, low drag on system, AV product, which was the reasoning for this thread.

 

You did say "free".

Were it my netbook, I would at least try avast! first. It will add a little latency. You be the judge.

Immunet and Panda Cloud should be good in terms of lag but some disconcertingly quirky things have happened when I've tried them on low spec PCs.

 

True, but I would be willing to check out other AV's on my netbook if they have a low drag on the system, even paid.

 

In that case NOD32 was still good last time I used it (about 3 months ago) providing you can put up with "Sonny" the robot all over the UI.

 

My Lenovo Ideapad S12 with 2 GB of Ram is running fine with CIS 5.3.

 

'Vipre' antivirus is light and robust. I think it might run well on your netbook.

http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Home-Home-Office/VIPRE/

 

I have used Prevx/SOL for several months as my only real-time AV. I sometimes venture into shark-infested waters. Prevx/SOL have thus far given me excellent protection.

Prevx/SOL is a potent, broad-spectrum security app. It covers anti-malware, behavior blocking, anti-keylogger, & anti-driveby. Its usages of I/O, RAM, & CPU are minuscule. It has just 2 processes real-time on Process Explorer.

I recommend: (1) you run Prevx/SOL real-time, (2) image weekly to an external drive, & (3) run HitmanPro on-demand every so soften. This approach should give you solid protection with minimal hit on system resources.

 

I'd say either avast! or AVIRA. These 2 ran the fastest by far on my netbook.
But i prefer avast! as it is the most complete program and isn't annoying with its ads.

 

+1 I do have Avast AV Free on my spare laptop and it running pretty fast

 

Daily nag screen on Avira is gone. However you're right in that Avast Free is more complete.

 

Panda Cloud AV is pretty light, NIS is also an excellent option both of these have been installed before on my bro's netbook and they are kinda fast.

PCAV is uninstalled right now but NIS is nice and sleek

 

Thanks for all the suggestions guys. Much appreciated.

 

You can also strip avast! down by not installing some shields. You could opt to not install Mail Shield, IM Shield and P2P shield, since all threaths coming from that vectors will be picked up by the File Shield later on. Next to that I am not sure whether you will use that features. Also using common sense will assist the File Shield: using reliable torrents/downloads, known friends, watch for strange attachments.
I would install File -, Web -, Network - and Behavior Shield.

 

Norton, ESET, Vipre, Avast

 

My wife is using MSE for the last 4 month on her Samsung N220-JP01 N450,1/250GB,10",7S.

Set and forget. See still keeps smiling at me

 

raymond.cc had a quite extensive test of a whole slew of AVs, but his site appears to be down. AV-Comparatives has a performance test on their site, but it doesn't test as many as Raymond did.

Seems to me that for a netbook LUA + SRP and an on-demand AV like Avast or Avira (using the custom installation) would be a good idea. This uses almost no resources. I have a couple of boxes running like this for a few years now and they're clean as a whistle. Not running as admin is one of the simplest and most effective measures you can implement for security.