Try it yourself. Uninstall AVIRA, reboot, install MSE, update it, run full scan to cache the files, reboot and see yourself
As long as MSE issues regular daily updates and one doesn't wander too far off the main road, it'll do a good job. I'm running 4.2 pre-release again--28mb in memory at idle--and performance wise its almost as light as Webroot. Just to echo Davesky--it is pretty much trouble free and compatable w/almost no false positives. Having said all that, I drive my Chromebook when I want to go off-roading.
Yeah, of course. just collecting some feedback first. This is for a friend that just bought a used laptop and wanted me to go over it. I personally don't use an AV on my systems.
DrBen, you are right on. MSE on 2 computers and Windows Defender on the other. Works flawlessly and as good as the paid crap being marketed today.
Aah! - understand! I run 64 bit. MSE has always run around the 40-50MBs mark for me in Windows 7. When I installed Windows 8 Pro about 3 months ago – Win Defender consistently ran around the 80MB mark – curiously, about a week ago it had dropped back to 40+MBs and has remained at that level! I'm clueless as to how Defender has achieved this little trick – but I'm not complaining!
I'm running MSE pre-release too just now. I like it but am getting a bit bored now it's been installed for 72 hours. Not enough for me to 'fiddle' with either......
They must have their heads stuck in the days of DOS when it mattered. I don't put RAM in my machines for it to sit empty. I still think they whole thing could be silenced with an optional setting in the software. Use more memory so that the software will run faster, or use less memory so it will page it out and people can have their free RAM.
RAM is cheap nowadays. Additionally, one can improve their memory performance by using ReadyBoost in Windows Vista/7/8. ReadyBoost USB flash drives cost as low as about 5 euro.
Still, if the RAM is cheap there is no need for AV to swallow it all. I prefer to use it for other things and AV should make minimal possible footprint.
What could you possibly use 4 GB RAM for which is the average these days? I would prefer my AV to use as much RAM as possible and operate at fast speeds as opposed to paging them Heck, I have my paging file off and I have 11 GB of FREE RAM after being online for 2 days and this is after 2 benchmarks with the ltatest 3DMark and having the following running applications: - Bitdefnder Antivirus Plus 2013 (Using 3 MB RAM) - Google Chrome with 3 tabs (using 350 MB RAM) - Postbox (email client) (using 150 MB RAM) - Dropbox (Using 60 MB RAM) - Internet Download Manager (using 11 MB RAM) - Evernote (Using 16 MB RAM) - iCloud (Using 6 MB RAM) - Logitech Setpoint (Using 8 MB RAM) - Apple Photo Stream (Using 12 MB RAM) - Sidebar (Using 20 MB RAM) and a few others
A lot of people have laptops, netbooks, or ultrabooks that have 2-4 GB of RAM, in which case just surfing the web will leave you with just 25-30% of free RAM.
i have a laptop with 4gb of ram and with everything running ,security and browser etc i have 60% ram free.
Maybe their machines can't handle that much RAM. Maybe they can't afford RAM modules for their "older" machines, which always cost more than modules for newer machines (in here anyway). Maybe they can't afford to buy new machines either, so either they try to see if the RAM usage is acceptable or use something else to protect them, that won't consume as much RAM.
Another "RAM is cheap" argument? Duh. "Cheap" is relative to whom you're speaking to. If you're there to tell someone it's cheap, maybe consider donating money to him/her? We all know that RAM is fast and it's better to use it than not to (generally speaking). However, too much of a good thing can be bad. Imagine what happens if all developers decide that their programs deserve to use RAM as much as they want to without trying to be resourceful (and use the excuse that "RAM is cheap"). I don't want to end up in a situation where that amount of RAM I deem plenty today becomes "not enough" tomorrow. Sure go ahead and use my RAM if it needs it but spare some thoughts that my computer isn't meant for your program alone.
I guess the point is what I added in my siggy last week. ESET uses around 80-100MB of RAM because all the Sigs are loaded into the RAM in ONE process ekrn.exe. And that way it's way faster than keep writing/reading back and forth on the HDD. I also use Webroot once in while, though the difference is that Webroot is a fully cloud based solution and in return it uses 1-2MB of RAM. But still, BOTH products is very very similar when it comes to system performance and response, they are very good. And that's why I react when a person says that an AV that's using maybe 80+ MB of RAM is "Heavy", or even worse "Bloated" bloated has nothing to do with it what so ever. In other words to find out if a product is light or heavy by only looking at the RAM usage is not the right way. Users should look at I/O usage, and CPU usage first. And how the PC actually feels when you're using it. Of course we all would love that all security solutions would use 1-10MB of RAM. But with some AVs for example ESET it's impossible due to the way it's designed. And personally I favor AVs that has this designed. If I can "feel" the solution i'm using then it won't last long on my system that's for sure. IMO 2GB or 4GB it doesn't matter an AV should run smooth as silk on a system with that much RAM. And the resources that's needed for surfing the web or doing other stuff can't be blamed on the AV.
Yes I agree. That's why I have a limit of how much RAM my solution is allowed to use and I guess it's somewhere between 150 - 200MB. Of course if it's using 200MB and I can see the shadow of a turtle once a minute it's a no go.
