Antivirus Programs and the Processes that each takes?? Is there such a beastly guide

Antivirus Programs and the Processes that each takes.

Is there such a list that gives you information on how much processes each popular antivirus solution takes up on your computer? THIS WOULD BE AWESOME if we could all get into this and figure out how much system processes is taken up by the most popular antivirus programs and then we could compile it into a list that people can use to better help them make an Antivirus decision. Do you think this is possible?? Or is there already a guide that I don't know about?


The List (in order of size):

• ArcaVir
  
  51,224K including 5 Processes.​
• McAfee Enterprise v.8.0i
  
  35000K including 7 processes.​
• Panda AV Titanium 2004
  
  27,9966K including 3 processes.​
• Avast! v4.6
  
  15,700K including 5 prcesses.​
• NAV 2003 11,202K
  
  32,432K including 2 processes.​
• VBA32
  
  10,000-11,000K including 1 process.​
• Command AV
  
  10,000 - 11,000K including 6 processes.​
• KAV 5 Personal
  
  9,000 - 15,000K including 2 processes.​
• NOD 32
  
  8,500K including 2 processes.​
• eXtendia AVK Pro
  
  4,000 - 5,000K including 2 processes(only KAV engine used in RTM)​
• Dr Web
  
  1,520K including 2 processes.​
• F-Prot for Windows
  
  1,000 - 2,000K including 2 processes.​

 

Panda Antivirus Titanium 2004 = 27,996K including 3 Processes.

 

Re: Antivirus Programs and the Processes that each takes?? Is there such a beastly g

NOD 32 : 8500K including two processes

 

Re: Antivirus Programs and the Processes that each takes?? Is there such a beastly g

ArcaVir has quite a few processes and uses about 10MB of real memory plus about 40MB of virtual memory

 

Re: Antivirus Programs and the Processes that each takes?? Is there such a beastly g

Avast! V4.6 = around 15700K including 5 processes.

Anybody want to step up with their norton and mcafee information? lol I'm really interested to see this comparison.

BTW: Thanks Stephanos! Thanks Firecat! Thanks to all who might help!

 

Re: Antivirus Programs and the Processes that each takes?? Is there such a beastly g

Also... all that I have done is hit Ctrl+Alt+Del and found the processes that the AV uses and added 'em up using the calculator. Is this a good way of doing it? I want to do this right the first time around.

 

Re: Antivirus Programs and the Processes that each takes?? Is there such a beastly g

Same way too. Ctrl+Alt+Del, is the right way

 

Re: Antivirus Programs and the Processes that each takes?? Is there such a beastly g

Awesome... just making sure.

If you havn't noticed, I edited the first post and title with a list.
And to make the list cleaner, lets just use this format:

Name of AV - size(K) including X processes.

Firecat, do you think you can do that for ArcaVir again please?

 

Re: Antivirus Programs and the Processes that each takes?? Is there such a beastly g

OK...ArcaVir - Total memory used = 51224K on my PC. However, Mariusz Sasinski from Stormbyte claims only about 10MB is used in real memory, and about 40 MB is used in virtual memory

Oh yeah, the processes:

ABRegMon.exe - Registry Monitor
abmenu.exe - Probably related to UI
AVMonSv.exe - Related to monitor
NetMonSV.exe - ArcaBit NetMonitor
ArcaScan.exe - Related to scanning (I believe the actual scanning is done by this file)

 

Re: Antivirus Programs and the Processes that each takes?? Is there such a beastly g

1. McAfee Enterprise v.8.0i- 7 processes; 35MB VM

2. KAV 5 Personal; 2 processe; 9-15 MB VM.

3. Command AV; 6 processes; 10-11 MB VM.

4. Dr Web; 2 processes; 1520K VM.

5. F-Prot for Windows; 2 processes; 1-2 MB VM.

6. eXtendia AVK Pro; 2 processes; 4-5 MB VM (only KAV engine used in RTM)

7. VBA32; 1 process; 10-11 MB VM.



All of the above results were seen on Win2000/XP systems with "tweaked" settings of the AV and without any email scanner installed.

Plus don't forget that some AV's with a fairly heavy RAM footprint still do not have much effect on system performance. McAfee Enterprise for example runs very light.

However, we may not be making a fair comparison. All my readings above were noted after "optimizing" the AV, particularly the RTM.

Default settings without a custom install, would obviously give slightly different results. Maybe you could indicate this in your "final" table?

The OS that the AV is installed on will also affect the results.

Therefore apart from simply stating the number of processes and their VM usage, maybe users could post;

* The OS used.
* Whether the results were obtained under default settings or not.
* Whether the AV seems to have any effect on system performance.

Unless we simply show a range of results.

ProcX can also be used to take a look at running processes and their memory usage etc. A very nice free program.

 

Re: Antivirus Programs and the Processes that each takes?? Is there such a beastly g

Task Manager can report both. The "Memory Usage" column reports what's called the "current working set". The current working set is the amount of memory in pages that are currently resident in physical memory. The "Virtual Memory Size" column reports what's sometimes also called the "private bytes" and it shows the amount of virtual memory committed to a process.

BTW, on my system, nod32krn is reporting "Mem Usage" as 14,444 K and nod32kui as 2,132 K, for a total of ~16 MB. I don't really know, but some AV products may take differing amounts of memory based upon things like: how much total physical / virtual memory you have on your system, how long your computer has been up and running, how many files the on demand scanner has touched and possibly cached, etc. So, direct comparisons between products on different people's systems may not be totally valid, although it probably is somewhat useful as a guideline to be taken with a pinch of salt.

 

Re: Antivirus Programs and the Processes that each takes?? Is there such a beastly g

That's why I suggested a range may be useful There are too many variables when looking at different systems.

So those people with AV's already listed, please post, particularly if your figures are somewhat different to those already posted.

 

NAV 2003 using two processes.

NAVAPSVC.EXE - Memory usage 944K, peak 9312K. Virtual Memory 3000K, peak 8468K.

ccApp.exe - Memoryusage 1752K, peak 9000K. Virtual Memory 5456K, peak 5652k.

 

This is great guys! Thanks a ton for the help!

Oh, and however you might want to do this, lets do it that way! I wasn't sure what the best way of doing things were. All I really wanted to know is how much system resources each AV uses when it's at idle (or not scanning anything). Know what I'm saying?

So, do we want to keep it as simple as possible (less accurate I suppose) or give a range (more complicated but more accurate)? Might as well do it right the first time, huh?

 

Well, I have 'em all ordered now, but I don't know if I did it right. lol. I don't know which numbers I should use in the ranges. The smallest one or the largest one?

 

Re: Antivirus Programs and the Processes that each takes?? Is there such a beastly g

IMO, the key factor is the total memory usage and keep it as simple as possible. Just list the highest RAM usage. Then list them in descending memory usage.

Overall, hopefully people may be able to look at the Table and see which AV's are suitable for older or newer computers.

 

Re: Antivirus Programs and the Processes that each takes?? Is there such a beastly g

Alright! Sounds great then!

I'll re-arrange it to show the highest memory usage in the given ranges.

Thanks!

 

I don't wanna dampen the enthusiasm but shouldn't we instead be determining what AV catches more nasties?

 

Re: Antivirus Programs and the Processes that each takes?? Is there such a beastly g

In determining which AV to use it is generally a balance between performance and protection.

For example, F-Secure/eXtendia AVK Pro are all well-known for their high detection rates but choosing one of these for your primary AV is no good if on installation it brings your computer to a halt.

Therefore, for many people, particularly those with an older computer, memory/system resource usage may be an important factor to consider when choosing an AV.

 

Re: Antivirus Programs and the Processes that each takes?? Is there such a beastly g

Nicely put!

 

Re: Antivirus Programs and the Processes that each takes?? Is there such a beastly g

It would be good if we could have results for the following AV's; preferably the latest versions in each case;

AVG; AntiVir; Trend Micro; NAV; McAfee VirusScan; Norman AV; Escan; F-Secure; GDATA AVK Pro.

 

Re: Antivirus Programs and the Processes that each takes?? Is there such a beastly g

Looking through past threads, I found these;

GDATA AVK Pro; 27MB RAM.

F-Secure; 15 processes!!!!; 34MB RAM.

 

Re: Antivirus Programs and the Processes that each takes?? Is there such a beastly g

I'll try to get VirusScan results tomorrow. I only have the Internet Security Suite 2005, so I do not know how accurate the mem usage is gonna be.