Non-memory intensive anti-virus program??

W.arner1281

W.arner1281

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I'm looking for an antivirus program that won't slow my computer down to the point where I want to turn off the antivirus program (hence defeating its purpose). I had McAfee which not only slowed my computer down, but also failed in its purpose. My daughter managed to get a virus through myspace and I ended up just reformatting the computer and starting fresh. Any one have any suggestions?

When I do a full system scan, obviously it'll hog resources, but when I'm just actively checking e-mail or surfing the web, I'd like to not notice the fact that each webpage is being checked for virus before opening. I can get McAfee free through my cable provider, but I'll pay for a different program if it works like I asked. Thanks.
 
AVG. I've tried McAfee before but could not stand it because it was such a system hog. Went with Norton but then Norton eventually got bloated as well. Now I use AVG and everything is cool runnings :cool:

Mind you I'm no expert on the matter put AVG Anti-virus does have a free version so give it a shot. Also keep in mind you might have to use multiple solutions for viruses,malware,spyware. I use Ad-Aware(free version) Malwarebytes(also free) as well.
 
[quote name='kube00']Antivir[/quote]
Just came in to say this. Antivir has a very light footprint and has caught a lot of stuff that AVG missed on my system.
 
Norton Internet Security 2009 is actually very good. The older versions of this were memory hogs, but Norton did a huge overhaul of their program for 2009 and it is quite light on resources, and installs under a minute!
 
Anyone who isn't using either Avast or Avira (or nod32 or Kaspersky, if they don't mind paying) is wasting time, money, and system resources. Not to mention poorer detection rates, in most cases (I'm looking at you, AVG).
 
[quote name='Danil ACE']Norton Internet Security 2009 is actually very good. The older versions of this were memory hogs, but Norton did a huge overhaul of their program for 2009 and it is quite light on resources, and installs under a minute![/QUOTE]

This is true. I was quite surprised by how much better it was when I tested a trial with the Windows 7 beta.


Another thing to keep in mind is there should be no issue of memory usage. Memory is so cheap these days there is no excuse not to have any machine loaded with the maximum it will support. Your 32-bit system won't be able to use all of a 4 GB installation but the cost for that portion owned by the system is too minor to quibble. Getting those last few hundred megs available is a bigger win than the portion lost to the I/O mapping is a loss.

The real issue is CPU overhead. If the machine in question has multiple CPU cores, pin the anti-virus to the highest numbered core, so it never competes for cycles with older software that doesn't understand anything but single core and ignores the others.

Thus, if you have three or four core system, security software scans should never interfere with regular usage unless you're running very demanding apps that enlist all of the cores.
 
I've been using AVG for many years now and have yet to encounter any problems with it. I've also heard a lot of good things regarding Avast, although I've personally never used it.
 
[quote name='CoffeeEdge']Anyone who isn't using either Avast or Avira (or nod32 or Kaspersky, if they don't mind paying) is wasting time, money, and system resources. Not to mention poorer detection rates, in most cases (I'm looking at you, AVG).[/quote]
[quote name='btw1217']Kaspersky or nod32[/quote]
These.
 
I pair avast! with the COMODO Firewall on my 5-year-old Windows XP laptop with 512 MB of RAM and a 4200 RPM HDD. I also run the current versions of Ad-Aware and Spybot S&D from time to time just to be safe.

All of these programs are FREE and carry no advertisements or other annoying bullshit. (I'm looking at YOU, Avira AntiVir.)

So far they've done the job well and are pretty light on system resources. I recommend using all four of them.
 
I used AVG for the past decade damn near. Tried other ones but always went back to AVG.

The best antivirus solution is not a program, but simply getting in the habit of NOT visiting fucked up websites where most people get trojans, spyware, etc.
 
[quote name='crunchb3rry']
The best antivirus solution is not a program, but simply getting in the habit of NOT visiting fucked up websites where most people get trojans, spyware, etc.[/QUOTE]

Absolutely. Anti-virus/malware programs and firewalls are great, but without common sense even they can't save you forever.
 
[quote name='captainfrizo']I've been using AVG for many years now and have yet to encounter any problems with it. I've also heard a lot of good things regarding Avast, although I've personally never used it.[/quote]

I used AVG for years until their latest revision.

It doubled the amount of time my system took to start up, it was dog slow, and it caused my computer to crash at least twice. And we're not talking blue screen -- it simply shut the computer off with no notice.

I use Avast with Comodo and am happy with that.
 
I've been using AntiVir for a couple of years now on a few computers , haven't gotten any viruses yet and it uses very little resources. Great program.
 
I've used OSX with great success. Haven't got a single virus or trojan yet.

:cool:

Seriously though, back in my PC days I used and liked Avast. It was also re-assuring to be sitting there and out of nowhere here "Vrius database has been updated!" Like the virus fairy is always sitting on your shoulder, watching out for you.
 
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I used AVG free for about two years, then read a better review for Avast, so I switched, within three days of switching to Avast, I got a virus whilst surfing the web, I have since gone back to AVG, and have had no problems at all.

It does not hog resources on my machine, scans my emails, scans sites, and in general I feel comfortable using it.

So yeah, another vote for the AVG Free.
 
AVG has been missing lots of the newer bugs for me.
I have moved over to AVAST. Also, The newest version of Teatimer included with spybot S&D has turned out to be a huge memory hog.
 
I've been using Kaspersky for the past year and I've been really impressed with it. Its better than Norton and MacAfee
 
Thanks for everyone's input. Just a couple of responses-

[quote name='Danil ACE']Norton Internet Security 2009 is actually very good. The older versions of this were memory hogs, but Norton did a huge overhaul of their program for 2009 and it is quite light on resources, and installs under a minute![/quote]

I've actually noticed this myself. At work we have the newest Norton installed and I actually don't even notice that it's running. I'm just hesitant to take the plunge since back in my non-internet common sense days, it didn't do a good job of actually protecting me (kinda like a condom with holes... it looked good, but didn't really serve its purpose).

[quote name='crunchb3rry']I used AVG for the past decade damn near. Tried other ones but always went back to AVG.

The best antivirus solution is not a program, but simply getting in the habit of NOT visiting fucked up websites where most people get trojans, spyware, etc.[/quote]

I agree 100%. It's obvious for me when you're heading down the dark alleys of the internet, so I don't have to worry about myself. I've trained my wife as well. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to drive the point home with my daughter though, mainly cause she doesn't use the computer, except when we're out of town and she has to house sit.

[quote name='h3llbring3r']AVG has been missing lots of the newer bugs for me.
I have moved over to AVAST. Also, The newest version of Teatimer included with spybot S&D has turned out to be a huge memory hog.[/quote]

I noticed this with teatimer. I reformated my harddrive and then installed S&D and right after I turned on teatimer, my computer slowed way down. So I'll only be turning that on right before I go out of town.



Overall, I'm going to give AVG a try for now and see how it does for the 30 day trial. If it takes up too many resources or just doesn't haven't the functionality I'm looking for, I'll give AVAST a go. Thanks again everyone!
 
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[quote name='Warner1281']
I agree 100%. It's obvious for me when you're heading down the dark alleys of the internet, so I don't have to worry about myself. I've trained my wife as well. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to drive the point home with my daughter though, mainly cause she doesn't use the computer, except when we're out of town and she has to house sit.
[/quote]

Daughters are the bane of home PCs. Every computer I ever fixed and/or cleaned was the result of someone's daughter spending about a year accumulating viruses and tray app overload that bring the system to a crawl. One computer had 200+ viruses and 8 simultaneous installations of AOL in different folders. They never upgraded, instead they just installed the same program again and always used the newest one.
 
[quote name='crunchb3rry']Daughters are the bane of home PCs. Every computer I ever fixed and/or cleaned was the result of someone's daughter spending about a year accumulating viruses and tray app overload that bring the system to a crawl. One computer had 200+ viruses and 8 simultaneous installations of AOL in different folders. They never upgraded, instead they just installed the same program again and always used the newest one.[/QUOTE]

I know what you mean. Personally, I think there is a link between malware and boy bands that needs to be investigated.
 
[quote name='epobirs']Another thing to keep in mind is there should be no issue of memory usage. Memory is so cheap these days there is no excuse not to have any machine loaded with the maximum it will support. Your 32-bit system won't be able to use all of a 4 GB installation but the cost for that portion owned by the system is too minor to quibble. Getting those last few hundred megs available is a bigger win than the portion lost to the I/O mapping is a loss.[/QUOTE]
That's no excuse for shitty programming and bloatware.
 
[quote name='Liquid 2']That's no excuse for shitty programming and bloatware.[/QUOTE]

And how does that affect anything I said?

When you can buy 4 GB of PC6400 for $40 it's just stupid to not have the most your machine can support. You can use it up just as readily by running numerous well optimized apps.

CPU cycles are more expensive than RAM. Particularly when a 32-bit Windows app is limited to 2 GB. So long as 2 GB can be reserved for the primary app of the moment, I'm more concerned with how my processors are being consumed. It takes only a few K of badly designed code to waste vast portions of a system's processor time.
 
[quote name='epobirs']And how does that affect anything I said?

When you can buy 4 GB of PC6400 for $40 it's just stupid to not have the most your machine can support. You can use it up just as readily by running numerous well optimized apps.

CPU cycles are more expensive than RAM. Particularly when a 32-bit Windows app is limited to 2 GB. So long as 2 GB can be reserved for the primary app of the moment, I'm more concerned with how my processors are being consumed. It takes only a few K of badly designed code to waste vast portions of a system's processor time.[/QUOTE]
The impression I got from your post was that you were saying that it was silly to look for a non-memory-intensive application because it's a "non-issue" because memory is cheap nowadays.

Regardless of how much memory you have, it's stupid to use a program that's wasteful in allocating resources.
 
eset nod 32 antivirus is top drawer in my book. couple it with malware bytes and spybot if you want to be extra careful....it's my setup
 
[quote name='Xevious']I've been using Kaspersky for the past year and I've been really impressed with it. Its better than Norton and MacAfee[/QUOTE]

this. Kaspersky Internet Security!!

dont bother with AVG

i wouldn't bother with Avira unless you got at least 1gb of RAM
 
[quote name='refusedchaos']i wouldn't bother with Avira unless you got at least 1gb of RAM[/QUOTE]

Uh, why not? I'm running it now, and it's using, like, less than 3 megs of ram.
 
[quote name='Liquid 2']The impression I got from your post was that you were saying that it was silly to look for a non-memory-intensive application because it's a "non-issue" because memory is cheap nowadays.

Regardless of how much memory you have, it's stupid to use a program that's wasteful in allocating resources.[/QUOTE]

If the app does a better job than the competition for your needs, yes, getting overwrought about memory consumption is a waste of your time. Memory is no longer a scarce resource. Go to 64-bit and you're only limited by what you motherboard can handle and the current state of the art in RAM density.

Just a few years ago it would have mattered but things have changed considerably thanks to the onward march of technology.

Back when I still did coding and most systems still measured their RAM in Kilobytes, a good chunk of my life was spent in trying to reduce the footprint of a routine, hoping to make the final product have room for more features or run on a wider range of machines or fit on three floppies instead of four, when greatly affected how many units you had to sell before making profit. The development tools gave very little help and it was largely manual labor.

Those days are long past. The only developers who should devote more than 20% of their time to optimizing code for RAM consumption are dealing in embedded systems. This include devices like the NDS and iPhone/iPod that either use mask ROMs for distribution or have no storage expansion. In the world of desktop applications, such effort has severely diminishing returns past a point where you'd barely gotten started twenty years ago.

Given a choice between a security app that ate up X memory and one that consumed 50% more, I'd have to know how they compared otherwise. What did the small footprint app give up, if anything, to achieve its compactness? Does it need to access the drive frequently to access bits of itself? If you have plenty of memory this can be disruptive due to competition for resources other than RAM.

It isn't a cut and dried answer that one program is inferior because it uses more memory. Memory footprint has not been at the top of my list of complaints when comparing apps for a very long time. There is nearly always a more important flaw that is the dealbreaker.

But I am reminded of the Mr. Cool vs Pharaoh's Pyramid story that I'm sure I've told on this site previously.
 
I want to hear the stor-eee!

On topic:

I like avast more than AVG. Never tried out the others (avira, Nod, etc). Someone else mentioned AVG looking bad in a recent build, and I agree.

I also keep a list of malware/virus scanners on hand just in case. Usually these are one-shots for the virus of the week (such as the recent Conflicker). I include Microsoft's Malicious Software Removal Tool in this group.

I still use Spywareblaster as a safeguard, but I'm thinking it doesn't do much anymore these days.

I also use Advance System Care by IOBIT and CCleaner for general purposes.
 
[quote name='CoffeeEdge']Uh, why not? I'm running it now, and it's using, like, less than 3 megs of ram.[/QUOTE]

as what i thought. However, a couple of people have told me that it slows down their comp when they have the active guard (whatever the thing is called) on. And they have minimal things running in the background.
 
[quote name='refusedchaos']However, a couple of people have told me that it slows down their comp when they have the active guard (whatever the thing is called) on. And they have minimal things running in the background.[/QUOTE]

Uh, I have the active guard on. All the time. It uses less than 3 megs of RAM. I have a bunch of background processes, and my PC runs great.
 
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