use of resources: Norton or G Data AVK

Does anyone out there know if G Data AVK 2005 Pro is considered a "resource hog?" How does it compare to Norton AV 2005 in terms of resource use, foot print size, RAM use etc? I have never had any problems with Norton 2004 AV but have heard on Wilders that it uses a lot of resources and is not as good as some others. I have recentely swithched to G Data AVK 2005 and feel better protected with it- It updates virus definitions about every hour. But I would like to know if it is as resource hungry as Norton AV.

Thanks for any input on this subject- Hendrix

 

IME GData only uses about 25mb phys./19mb virt., this is extremely low considering it has dual engines. It also can be tweaked to be extremely responsive in most cases, exception Eliot's case. I hardly ever notice it randomly sucking up CPU cycles, or even updating for that matter.
NAV2004 was a horrid affair for me, and I only installed it for about an hour, it spawned around 10 process 9 that weren't needed, exaggeration
It also forced me to reboot after the update process, about 3-4 total I don't remember the exact number. Now with it all settled in, if you call an hour settled in then it was ok sitting at around 50MBphys. !! Extremely high in my case, but you never know, as stated all over this board try them both and see what works the best for you.
For me GData easy- No reboot after install and updates, 25mb/19mb, best sig db, top 3 heuristic engine, no system lag at all. GData all the way.
Cons- Support or lack there of, but since the GData ENG site is more concise now I imagine support would be better, or hope.

 

I'm with likuidkewl on this one.

My pc came with Norton 2004 on it from Compaq but it did not stay on long (personal preference). I went with Panda Platinum for a year and was happy until it ran out, then I ended up switching to AVK Pro 2005 and have been extremely happy with it. It runs nicely in the background without being noticeable. No system lag or slow boot times. It uses about 30k/22k of RAM which for me is just fine because I got plenty to spare. I leave it on while gaming and it doesn't cause any problems or lag. Probably on the high end for RAM usage, but CPU impact is rather low (for me at least).

For me it came down to two things: Do I feel confident with the protection the software provides? and Will it run smoothly on my system without getting in my way or causing aggravation? Answer to both was a resounding YES.

 

Thanks likuidkewl for the info!

Does anyone else have any experience or information on this subject? Looking forward to your remarks.

-Hendrix

 

Agree with likuidkewl and chia - GData is a smooth and sleek class act, Norton is a clunker. BMW compared to old Ford V8 if you will.

 

Thanks Chia and Grumble. So, would you say that I should not consider G Data AVK Pro 2005 to be a so called system resource hog?

-Hendrix

 

Hendrix, I don't consider GData 2005 to be a resource hog, though you should consider that you may need ample memory (say, 512 MB) to run a dual-engine av on YOUR machine along with your other applications. You say it is installed on your computer, so then, you be the judge: if it does not slow your sytem or otherwise interfere with its operation then it is not a resource hog. And you know, you can change options such as which engine(s) to run real-time, etc. Configured basically out of the box, it runs fine and is hardly noticeable on my modern though not super-powerful computer.

 

Thanks for the input Grumble. I have a DEll 8200 with 2.0 GIG. and 512 MB. of RAM. Along with AVK I am running Spybot, Spy Sweeper, Microsoft AntiSpyware, Trojan Hunter, SpywareBlaster and Zone Alarm Pro. I am using both scan engines for AVK. So far so good. It seems like everything is running about the same as it did when I was using Norton AV 2004, except I feel better protected and have more trust in AVK.

By the way, I am not having AVK scan archives or email archives because the help menu says that it adds a lot of extra time to the scans and is really not necessary as long as the AV Monitor is active. It says it will stop any virus that may have gotten in to the archives when the archives are opened. But not scanning these has me a little worried. I am not very computer literate and do not exactly know what the archives actually are. Can you or some one explain to me what the archives are and if it is really safe not to scan them as long as the AV Monitor is active?

Thanks for all the help everyone. Willders forums was a great discovery and I am learning a lot.

-Hendrix

 

An archive is a compressed file(s), some programs that create and open archives are, PKzip, WinRar, WinZip, 7-Zip, Stuff-it, etc.
Why it is not important to scan inside archives is that, when the specified programs opens the archive and the contents are extracted, they are scanned by AVK, and if it is a virus then they the user receives a prompt as to what to do. See Screen shot:
http://www.zer0-tec.net/likuidkewl/28may/GDataExample.png

 

I find G Data AVK to be a heavy user of memory for an a-v, more than 50 MB (not including VM) - the AVK mail proxy process alone is around 30 MB - but since I have 1.50 GB RAM I do not find this to be especially interesting or relevant in assessing performance. Norton 2003 used less memory here (on XP Pro SP2) but was a much more noticeable drag on performance. McAfee's VirusScan 8 uses more or less the same memory as AVK 2005 and has less impact on performance. NOD32 uses less resources than any of the others I have mentioned and runs like silk. So I use silk, er, NOD32 2.5

 

Well Hendrix, my computer is similar in capabilities to yours and I run both engines (optimized) for monitor and for on-demand. I have Monitor Settings set to check everything, including Archives (up to 300 kb) but to NOT check email archives. The Virus Check (on-demand) Settings are set for everything, including archives and email archives. I do an on-demand full scan about once a week and it takes maybe half an hour. If I wanted to do a quicker scan I suppose I would not check archives.

 

Thanks Grumble. For what it's worth, I have AVK set up the same as you except that I don't scan the archives, and my on-demand scans take about 30 min. also.

-Hendrix

 

Likuidkewl, thanks for the great explaination of archives. That makes it very clear.

-Hendrix

 

Hello Howard. Thanks for the response. I tried NOD 32, but being not very computer literate I found it to be to difficult to set up- Even with Blackspear's excelent instructions I still had questions. Once I finally got it setup I ran my first scan. It reported that I had no viruses but it also reported a bunch of other things of which I had no idea of their meaning. I had to go to the forum to find out- (it was "normal and nothing to wory about".) A few days later I ran another scan. Again it reported that I had no viruses, along with some more things of which I had no knowledge of their meaning. I finally dumped the program out of frusration. I think NOD 32 probably is as good as most people are saying on the forums, but I think that it is eather made for people with more computer experience than I have, or people that don't mind the unexplained (or don't mind having to contually take extra time to find the answers.)

-Hendrix

 

NOD32 gives blue lines with locked files in a scan... nothing to worry about. The red lines are nasties in NOD32. As long as you don't have them all is fine.

And if you have used Blackspear's instructions you are best protected against nasties... so please don't give up that easy. If you are not colourblind you should be fine with NOD32

 

Thanks Edwin. Maybe I will give it another try. Regarding the blue lines/red lines: Are all red lines "nasties"? If I get any red lines will I know for sure what to do with each one, or is it going to mean back to the forum for more time spent researching? (The help files are very limited I have noticed, and without Blackspear's help I would have given up attempting to setup the program altogether.) By the way, how did you come across the information regarding the blue versus the red lines? Something as basic and helpfull as that should have been in the help filles or instructions it seems to me. Maybe I just missed it. If for me using NOD32 is going to mean question after question, I don't care how good it is. I will use something else (maybe not quite as good) with everything you need to know spelled out, like a good program should have.

-Hendrix

 

Howard, you mentioned that "the AVK mail proxy process alone is around 30 MB." I have Outlook Express but I never use it. I use Gmail. Would you recomend that I disable the email scanning to save ram, or do I still need it for the Gmail or in case someone has my Outlook Express address and sends me something? (No one ever does.) I don't know much about how these things work (obviously). Sorry about my spelling by the way.

-Hendrix

 

Hi Hendrix, I'm not sure how AVK would work with Gmail as I have never used Gmail - all I know for sure is that the AVK proxy is used for checking IMAP4 and POP3 email as long as the mail clients are configured correctly (the help file is very clear how to do this) and I regard it as one of AVK's stengths that all mail clients I have tried can be configured for IMAP4/POP3 mail scanning by AVK. As for disabling email scanning, I personally wouldn't want to do that even though the mail I receive will already have been checked by corporate NAV - I like the peace of mind I get from mail checking, even if it is mostly redundant. (I'm afraid I haven't got AVK running at present as I am using NOD32, so I am going on memory).

 

I use NOD32 for quite some time allready... And what you can do is set NOD32 for scan and clean at an on-demand scan. Then you don't have a worry whatsoever!

The red lines usually are something of a nasty. Therefore the red I guess

To conclude: NOD32 is extremely good, but it has a lousy documentation... Thanks to Blackspear a lot is more clear now.

 

Hendrix (I can understand not wanting a resource hog) because I have an older computer and need as low an impact upon it as possible I use nod as my real time moniter and do a scheduled scan with AVK every day. Some call this over kill - But I do all my finacial work on the pc -It gives me peace of mind. Both are very good products.
This combo gives very good protection while being light on my computer (PIII).
best of both worlds.

 

Thank you Howard for your reply.
-Hendrix

 

Sinbad, that is a very interesting idea- very creative!

-Hendrix

 

I had Gdata for a year...I was very pleased to hear that Gdata started to launch their updates few times a day cause last year it was three/four times a week...while they had the sigs from kav on the same time if you know what I mean.

I liked it...I liked version 2005 a lot and certainly it scores very very good with bd and kav...

 

Infinity, did you notice any slow down or lack of responsivenes when you were using GDATA?

-Hendrix

 

nope, not at all. I just very much detested their support...in fact I still have the licence for 5 months and I refuse to install it...

for the rest it was topnotch from setup till detection...

but support was not so good as for the updates back then, probably this has been fixed hence the good reviews on several other fora.