Light antivirus or security suite?

My computer haven't been infected in years mainly because i was aware of what im doing, i reformatted my computer and i dont want to install heavy programs, my operating system is windows 8.1, even though my computer can handle most a/v programs i dont want to install lots of security related software, i'll be installing malwarebytes for on demand scanning but im not sure what should i use for real time protection. Avast uses low ram but is NOT light, so i want something that doesnt have too much impact on the computer performance and ram consumption doesnt prove that the software is light.
Thanks in advance

 

I continue to find ESET Smart Security very light on system resources, it's not noticeable at all!

I'm afraid I have little (recent) experience with many other products

 

im looking for a free product actually, i dont think its worth paying for an av solution considering my computer is rarely infected.
thanks for your suggestion though!

 

If you go for free only you can try Avira Free and Panda Cloud. They were both light last time I was using them.

Regards, hqsec

 

http://www.raymond.cc/blog/which-free-antivirus-is-the-lightest-on-system-memory-usage/

http://chart.av-comparatives.org/chart1.php?chart=chart4&year=2013&month=10&sort=1

http://www.av-comparatives.org/performance-tests/

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Webroot

 

#3 =

.............

 

Damn! I read his first post only.....

 

I'm thinking about avira now, thanks anon! (and everyone else too !)
although how good is MSE?it's built-in in windows 8.1 although it's only baseline protection, i believe it might be good enough to scan files that i download with malwarebytes along with security extensions on chrome, how does that sound? good enough or not?
Thanks!

 

In my experience that's true. For AV it's better to have things (signatures, modules...) loaded in memory than loading them from disk every time it needs them. That's way I love ESET. It's memory consumption is higher than from some other AVs, but system impact is minimal. ESET's use of assembly language probably helps there too.

Regards, hqsec

 

If you know what you're doing MSE is enough. Add Malwarebytes and HitmanPro and you're OK. Also upload files to Virustotal if you're not sure about them.

Regards, hqsec

 

Yeap, nothing is lighter than WSA...