Twister Antivirus

For anyone wondering about resource usage:





This is running from 12:04 till 17:06 with constant p2p (so lots of realtime scanning) and me opening the gui quite often (which eats CPU).


How many western AVs can beat this CPU time and ram without excluding the Emule directory from realtime scanning?

 

Could you please provide a screenshot of these data -- preferably using a well-known TM such as Windows TaskManager or Process Explorer?

 

I'm having the same results her also i can not be leave how lite this AV is and runns so smooth i have had no problems with it and the reg watcher is just great and the info it provides on any alert is very good no spook alerts.

 

Well it seems to differ if it runs on Vista. This is how much it uses after 5 hours (no P2P´ing). Not that I care, as I always say - whats the use of RAM if it isnt used

 

Theses are my readings with Windods Task Manager.
Badcompany.

 

Bellgamin, you are not suggesting that my Task Manager (DTaskManager) is broken, are you? (its readings are identical to the normal Windows Task Manager). Being used to resource hogs just doesn't seem possible, does it?

Ok, this is from my current session, after 30 mins running.Both from Windows Task Manager And Process Explorer.

XP SP3. The columns in Process Explorer (after the company name) are CPU Time, Time the process started,date, memory.

 

35MB memory usage for your twister.exe? I guess my SP3 is better than yours?!

 

Hi,

I disabled the autorun for the Filseclab Messenger (FilMsg.exe), it seems to be just a task scheduler for scans and updates.

Cheers

 

Not at all. Dimio's stuff is quite good, even if it is limited in features. However, a screen shot of any given process's CPU time is not fully meaningful unless that screenshot shows CONTEXT -- such as the TM used for measurement, System time, System Idle time, etc.

Also, your comment re Badcompany's ram usage is inappropriate. Most any given program (especially an AV) will use a combination of physical memory & paged/swap memory. If Windows OS sees a lot of free physical memory, it will allocate a given program more of that physical memory & less of paged/swap memory -- because physical memory is faster.

However, if Windows OS sees that free ram is less, and further sees that occupied ram is being actively used, then Windows OS will commit more of the given program's needs to paged/swap memory, and less to physical memory.

So the possibility is NOT necessarily that your "SP3 is better" than Badcompany's, but that Badcompany's physical memory usage &/or size is bigger or less active than yours. This is NOT a certainty because many factors enter into the reasons why identical processes may (apparantly) be allocated differing system resources on different computers.

Good to know. Does that mean that Twister CANNOT now do automatic updates on your computer? That is, must you now update Twister MANUALLY?

 

Dear Bellgamin, relax. I tried to put smilies too. Next time i will add "just joking" i guess.

I know my SP3 isn't better than his... I don't think he has more available RAM than me. I have plenty to spare, even though i run EMule and watching a movie too.

http://img65.imageshack.us/img65/1452/30068891nc5.png

So if we want to be serious, my guess would be that the 2 people having 48 and 35 MB usage, run some application that is very active and prolly this causes much more attention for Twister. For example, a HIPS or behaviour blocker which monitors much disk activity and on its turn, this causes Twister to scan much more. Plus an increased number of services (like in Vista).

As for my system idle time, i can assure you, it is higher than most people in here. I have nlited XP with SP3 integrated and avoid running resourse hogs like the plague. 26 running processes at startup.

Regards

 

That's nice, but it wasn't my point in saying that comments about system usage require context. For instance, a cpu usage of 1 minute sounds really low -- but it is NOT low if system time has only been 5 minutes. It is difficult to draw any conclusions from a screenshot of cpu time that lacks system time & idle time in the shot. Further, cpu time also is affected by cpu speed, dual or not, BUS, OS, etc. Thus, a comparison of cpu time for AV "A" versus cpu time for AV "B" on YOUR computer is somewhat meaningful. In other words, comparisons in a vacuum are -- umm.. worthy to be vacuumed.

Twister's usage of cpu is heavier than Avira's -- on MY computer, that is. I am running Twister (not Avira) at the moment. My Avira is safely sequestered (for the nonce) on a separate image on a hard drive in a galaxy far far away.

 

I understand Bellgamin. Personally, i know my setup, so i usually judge by runtime. I mean, AVG 8 by now, would have that avgsrvx.exe or what's its name was, at over 1,30 min. I can also FEEL it's light. Folder just open with lightnining speed. Avira is light too, but on my pc not quite as light and i had a stability problem.

Anyway, just to give you the complete idea, here is a screenshot after 2 hours now, with system idle included (Opera and Emule are my usual resourse hogs):



You can even compare between processes. RocketDock, which i use once every 15 minutes i guess, eats more CPU and Twister.exe is slightly higher than Visual Task tips, which is ridiculous if you think about it. That's a tiny little program showing thumbnail previews at your taskbar and its whole installation folder is 139KB...

 

Couldn't resist trying twister after all the conversation here about it.Its using at present 43 meg of ram and 8meg for the updater on vista premium sp1,but i guess this isnt bad considering the registry protection and fdds module.It does run fast, though opening explorer windows is no faster than avast.However it is faster when browsing ,but then again theres no web scanner like avasts which will slow browsing slightly.All in all a very nice AV.Reminds me of antivir 6 simplicity.I much prefer these low tech GUIs.Simple ,low resource and effective.
ellison

 

THANKS Fuzzy old bean. It's apparent that your computer has more RAM & a faster cpu that mine does.

It is equally apparent that Twister runs exceedingly well on your computer. Mine, too.

A reliable Wilders denizen (user name Blackcat) tested Twister against a sizeable bed of nasties, & said good things about it.

As to your choice of PCT's FW, I shall merely say --
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now -- will somebody please tell me if I can turn off Twister's Filmsg.exe without screwing up anything in Twister itself? (I *think* Filmsg.exe is the thingee that pops up the message when Twister alerts me to a registry access issue, but I have not yet been able to verify that.)

 

My CPU is the entry level AMD dual core (3800+= 2x3200+ cores), so it's not a power monster, but if you keep your PC light (with nlite and small startup list) and clean (i run 4 reg cleaners plus manual search after uninstalling something with Revo Uninstaller), your CPU may appear more performant compared to higher CPUS that are overloaded by crap.

Of course, in lesser CPUs, Twister will appear heavier, but everything is proportional anyway. For example, the comparison with RocketDock and Visual Task Tips, shows that no matter how you count it, Twister IS light, at least on my PC. Also if someone is used to run many heavy programs that eat much CPU Time, running something that *i* think as heavy, for them may appear light. I mean, if you have your task manager full of apps with 00:30:00 after an hour of running the PC, an application with 00:09:00 will seem "light". While on my task manager full of zeros, it screams for "attention".

Yes, i can't complain! It's like AVG free 7.5 i 'd say. That was as light as i saw in an AV. AVG 8 runs much heavier. It also feels light. If i hadn't bought Twister, i would be running Avast with standard shield only now.

Yes, this has been a recurring event since the beginning of this topic and i have no reason in not trusting posters' results. This also influenced my decision to buy it. I did a few tests myself, just for fun, although i don't collect malware. I just downloaded some from VX Heavens and p2p and Twister was very effective i must say. Although a p2p collection proved to have a majority of DOS viruses (Jerusalem era), which aren't suitable as testbed nowdays.

LOL! Well, i understand your reaction, i was hesitant for years to try PC Tools firewall too, but i AM searching for the heir of Kerio 2, and this one is really light! It's very good in p2p (you can even make it let fragmented packets pass, which EMule wants) and my browsing is surprisingly smooth. I am tempted to use Comodo, but it's a tad more sluggish when i browse and often i grow tired of some popups. I am tempted to use Threatfire as added protection, but the Net module(Tfnetmon.sys) has a small effect on my browsing. I am behind a router and i am a low risk user, so for the time being i am keeping PC Tools Firewall.

I would love to use OA Firewall, but on my PC its CPU consumption is unacceptable in p2p for my taste, not to mention its UDP performance in the latest matousec test (66), which is important for Emule.

Kerio 2 is also great but growing old. Ashampoo Firewall Free is also very light, but i have found it having too many incompatibilities with other security products. FortKnox is very nice too, but eats too much CPU with p2p. The STABLE version of Kerio 4 is horrible with Emule, i tried it last week and if you try to see the active connections, freezes everything. I 'll pass on the beta. The good old Sygate was great when i had a slower CPU and/or internet speed. Now with p2p it eats much more CPU than when i was using it many times ago. Prolly because back then i could have 256kbps connection, while now with 7Mbps it is overstrained with p2p.

The problem nowdays, is that they try to make a firewall that will beat leak tests and optimizing its network performance becomes secondary issue. Comodo has no1 leak tests result! Yay! But 82 performace in TCP and UDP. Online armor is great at leak tests, but 66 in UDP. Thank God, now that matousec pubblished the problem, i read that they will work on it. After all, the important issue was to pass the leak tests.

Right now Twister + PC Tools Firewall give a very performant combination. Not secure, but very performant. Maybe i will put Comodo again , but i can FEEL a difference when opening folders. With Comodo there is a small lag, i can see the cursor going into waiting mode for a fraction of a second. While with the current setup, it's like zap, zap, zap! Very snappy! You can't have uber security without some performance hit unfortunately... And all these HIPS, behav blockers etc are great, but hooking everything takes a toll on the system. And i am pretty sensible to the slightest variation of system responsiveness.

Another nice thing about Twister, is that its installation is all at one place. Other AVs start spreading files in document settings - app data, common files etc. In Twister it's all in his installation directory and clearly named too. This makes things easier in case you want to run Returnil. You have just one place to add to the folder manager. In fact, maybe i will just add Returnil and keep the PC Tools firewall.

Personally i will leave the messenger alone, specially since i see that it doesn't grow on CPU or RAM usage, while Twister.exe does a bit.

 

Twister is not that quick on demand scanning. Takes approx 3x as long as Avira on the same set of files...

 

Maybe so. But for my system, which doesn't have many files, it's more than acceptable. I am more worried about system performance while having the resident scanner on and in that on my system Avira is more heavy, meaning there is a small lag when browsing through folders. With Twister the system responds almost like after a fresh format, so i don't mind it taking 10 minutes for 60000 files. I saw it slowdown mainly on cab files (extracting i suppose) and some .jar files.

 

Another thing i like. I installed Returnil. The Registry Protector kicked in and gave 3 alerts. At the end, i was asked to send Returnil's driver for submission as "suspect".



I also emailed them about the Abiword false positive (it was flagged as Zhelatin trojan) and they fixed it within 24 hours.

 

Ok, what i have as real problem is defragmentation. Auslogics slows down to 1/6 give or take of its speed, because Twister apparently is trying to scan everything even when defragging. The solution is to temporarily disable the realtime protection, because it can become annoying having this slowdown effect.

On the bright side, no initial problems running with Returnil.

 

The Twister blocks the web-viruses via blocking the Internet Temporary Files, our tests shows that is very effective. The Twister has an high rate for detecting the web-viruses such as script viruses and virus downloaders etc. In addition, we will develop a new firewall and apply it to the Twister in the end of this year.

Best Regards,

Filseclab Support
service-global@filseclab.com

 

You may try to rename the :\Program Files\Common Files\Filseclab\Filpp.sys to filpp.sys.del and restart your computer to try again. this operation will disable the Process Protection. at some time the Process Protection may make a BSOD, but I cannot make sure it is this problem, you may try it first. We will try to improve it in the next version.

If there have some users encounter the BSOD problem after Twister installed, you may send the files in :\Windows\Minidump to us, this can help us to locate the problem.

Best Regards,

Filseclab Support
service-global@filseclab.com

 

We have contacted VB100, they tell us the next Windows system test will start at July, but I cannot make sure our program can be test at this time, we will try.

Best Regards,

Filseclab Support

 

Sure, the Twister cannot run in safe mode now because its scan module is a driver but the safe mode dose not allow to load this driver, we will improve it in the next version. but usually, you need not to make scan in safe mode because it has good detection and clean ability in normal mode.

Best Regards,

Filseclab Support
service-global@filseclab.com

 

Good news.

Regards

 

Hello! Glad a Filseclab Rep came in the forum. If i may ask, PLEASE keep things LIGHT. This is a crucial point of advantage that Twister has over other AVs (at least for me). Even better if you can opt-out from installing the firewall during installation, because many firewalls tend to be CPU hungry with p2p.

Thank you.

P.S: THANK GOD you just block the internet files instead of using "web shields" that slow down browsing.