Best antivirus with less memmory consumtion (resurces)?

Hello!This is my first time that i make a thread in this corner of the forum,so what i'm looking for is a antivirus (i don't care if it's free or payable if it does his work i'll buy it ) which consumes less memmory and resurces but in the main time it has a good protection and supports bought X86/X64 OS systems.So i'm waiting for your opinion of the antivirus that you use and how much does consumes
PS:For the moment i use Microsoft Security Essential 6,540k memmory in idle

 

NOD32 is the lightest on the system and most secure.

 

I wouldn't focus too much on RAM usage.
You've got 4GB and you will not notice that much difference between an AV that uses 20MB or one that uses 40MB.
Take also into account CPU usage, during idle/downloading/updating/a full scan etc.
That will be much more noticable during every day usage.
Check f.i. the AV-Comparatives report; Comparatives/Reviews; Performance Tests link.
While it's from Dec 2010, it does give a good indication.

p.s When checking MSE RAM usage, also take into account the MsMpEng.exe process.

 

Panda Cloud antivirus is ridiculously lightweight AND free. It'll offer as much protection as is necessary for the average user.

I also suggest you configure your browser to be more secure -- if you use Chrome put javascript on a whitelist, if you use Firefox use NoScript.

If you are willing to put a little work in you can also download the Comodo firewall and Defense+ package (free) and that's a very good defense setup.

 

No it's not that is just that i want to be light enough but strong protective also,i want one that consumes less RAM/CPU because of the battery more cpu/ram stress brings much more power consumption.I looked on your link but didn't find a real comparison of the AVs?!
I already had NOD32 Antivirus,Bitdefender Total security/internet security,Kaspersky internet security and it eats to much way to much from the 4 that i've used NOD 32 was much more balanced but still consumes

 

When it comes to the best antivirus protection, you can't have your cake and eat it too. You have to decide which is more important to you: Leanness, or maximum protection. Although the best programs, will wait until your system is inactive before they do their thing.

 

I almost always recommend to people that they pick one of the following free AV programs for best overall protection:
Avira, Avast or MSE.

 

I also use MSE and as a free AV i'm very pleased with it des his job quite good just that it also consumes a bit to much as i look in the task manager at the processes antimalware service executable 63.448K + Microsoft security client user interface 4.804k

 

60K is about as little as they'll use. Try Panda Cloud antivirus.

Also as I suggested earlier, you can try Comodo's firewall and HIPS Defense+, which is currently using about 6MB of RAM on my computer.

 

MSE does have a 60MB RAM usage... however, that's not exactly too relevant (even on older systems).
It does have a tendency to utilize more of the cpu however, but in my experience, I didn't notice any slowdowns in computer use during updates, quick scans or on-demand scans (I'm puzzled by some who had slightly better specs than me and stated their computer would 'slow down to a crawl' during those periods).

I do think MS needs to reduce cpu usage (and possibly RAM as well) plus optimize MSE a bit more, but overall, it's still among the top 3 free AV programs I usually recommend.
For the life of me, I cannot really see improvements with AVG though.
I noticed the computers who had it installed appeared overall less responsive (I was able to notice a rather noticeable increase in 'snappiness' when replacing it with Avira, Avast or MSE).

 

Yes i'm agree with you the thing is that is not that it slows my notebook or something but i when i am on the battery i want to make the notebook to consume less energy and resources as possible as I mentioned in one of the posts a little bit more earlier

 

I don't think any AV uses very much CPU. Here on my desktop, with over 548 hours of CPU Idle Time I show less than 20 minutes total CPU time (total) for all the security components of MSE and Microsoft Anti-Malware combined. Just make sure you don't have a scan scheduled while running on battery and you should be OK.

 

I wouldn't worry about MSE using too much of the cpu or draining the battery.
First time scan of the system will take time, but subsequent scans will take relatively short amount of time and won't be noticeable in terms of resource consumption.
Same goes for the updates (I doubt the battery would be drained that much at all with MSE updating itself in the bg).

 

If that's what you are aiming for then you can achieve the most by undervolting the CPU.
(That will also lower temperatures and thus result in a bit lower fan power consumption).
You can often achieve 10-15% extra 'battery time' pretty easy that way.
Check the ' Undervolting guide' thread here on NBR. link

 

How is it that NIS only uses about 12mb? Are they hiding something in a system process or... ?

 

Yes. One of them must only show to admins, make sure that's what you're looking at.

 

i am the admin...

 

Is it a typical blacklist AV?

 

Should take a look at the whole process picture. How much percentage is the AV gonna be from the total?

In my case MSE uses 70MB but constitutes only negligible percentage of the CPU usage

cheers ...

 

As I said, RAM usage is not so important in an AV.
Granted, the smaller footprint the better (because it's my opinion that a software should be efficient at what it does without being a resource hog), but it also depends on how the program uses the resources at it's disposal.
MSE may seem a bit 'big' compared to Avira and Avast in RAM use, but it gets the job done without infringing on system performance which is why I still recommend it (that and the lowest FP rate).

 

I think what you mean is that RAM usage is not important to you.

It's important to me. It's important to others I'm sure. 60MB of RAM? Yes, I've got 4GB but if I can shave off 10MB here or there throughout various programs... it adds up, and it DOES make a difference in a modern OS.

I personally refuse to use an antivirus for two main reasons:

1) I don't find them to be effective. Heuristics is a very newly implemented technology. MSE only has a 40% success rate against unknown malware. I get better results with my HIPS defenses.

2) Resources! Antiviruses use a lot more disk IO and RAM than Comodo Defense+. Defense+ uses 8MB at most with the firewall included! And the IO is almost nonexistent, far less than MSE or other antiviruses.

If I were suggesting a lightweight antivirus... Panda Cloud or MSE would be my top two. But I very rarely suggest antiviruses to anyone who really wants to secure their computer.

 

MSE it integrates very good with windows and i think better then the others...

 

Prevx is the best I've seen at using low resources, bar none.

 

I'm not saying that RAM use is completely irrelevant here.
More to the point on HOW the program uses the said resource.
An AV program could leave a low RAM imprint for example but be horribly inefficient when running and slow the system down.

In the past, I do acknowledge that high RAM use and slowed down Windows represented a correlation, but that is NOT always the case.

In MSE's case, given it's RAM imprint, I think the amount is still well within the 'nominal zone', especially when we take into account that it doesn't really impact the system when scanning (at least, I hadn't experience this).

 

you can reduce microsoft security essentials monitoring options, as you all know, and perhaps that would reduce its footprint on system resources as well? not that it would matter much in my opinion. i've used avg, avira, and am now very pleased using mse.

 

It could slightly reduce resource usage. I've never been able to get MSE below 60MB.

 

Given contemporary computers and their RAM capacity, even a system with 1GB would be able to use MSE perfectly fine.
Either way, the point is, despite it's slightly higher RAM usage compared to Avira and Avast, it's still on par with them when it comes to actual usefulness/performance/detection rates.

 

Yup, I've run MSE on a computer with dual core 1.6ghz + 1GB of RAM. It was fine.

 

Agreed.
I 'might' recommend Avast or Avira for computers that have under 1GB RAM, but even so, 60MB of RAM use is not that much (even if you have mere 512Mb).
Heck... even Avast is consuming 41MB RAM on my system... which is 20MB lower than MSE, but ultimately, they are both within the range of one another.
Avira's RAM footprint I'm not too sure of... though I think it may be the lowest of them all
Still, any of those 3 choices is spot on for those who have old computers (though admittedly, 256MB of total ram capacity just won't do for XP ).

 

How effective is MSE in detecting latest (0-day) threats?

 

It does a good job, the false positive rate is high however but it will do the job as an anti-virus.

 

I just checked Prevx (some will be put off by the cost) and it's around 7mb.

 

The memory usage bugs me. I mean, NIS 2010/2011/2012 all were around 10MB but the physical memory was always around 32-33%. Now, MSE is around 70MB total yet the physical memory is around 28-29%. The only difference between the OS was those two pieces of software. What's going on? I don't really know. I am the administrator so I can see everything.

Screw the numbers, I can tell by feel that MSE uses less resources...things are just...quicker/smoother.

Basically, I would take the memory usage numbers with a grain of salt and just go by feel. For instance, I know Avira is lauded for their low resources, but I felt that it slowed things down more than Norton even. Maybe it's just me but that's my two cents.

 

One of them is likely using more disk io or cpu. Use which one feels faster, that's all that matters.

Also, MSE has record low false positives. In terms of zero day threats it catches approximately 40%.

 

Ok so I made some tests and arrive at the conclusion that the right AV for me is NOD32 IS which uses less resources and it's more protective than MSE,I even made a contract for 3 years for it

 

what were the tests? and what were the results (besides the obvious)?

 

Just simple tests between different AV's CPU/RAM consumption on scan/update/idle mode

 

Ya I figured as much...that's why I was wondering what the results were.

Someone should give Eset IS 5 a go..

 

If I didn't use Prevx, that would be my choice for sure. Good one. I've used everything, literally...Prevx and NOD32 are two least intrusive I've found, in that order.

My Vostro came with 15 months of Trend Micro....what a joke re bloatness

 

I recommend Panda Cloud. It is very light in terms of memory usage. I use it on all my computers.

 

Avast! and Panda Cloud gets my vote, very light

 

I forgot to mention that Prevx is cloud based also, sort of a Panda Cloud on Steroids

 

Most major AV's have cloud-based something or other.

 

hmmm not really. Prevx and Panda Cloud don't work if you're offline. Maybe I misunderstood you.

 

Yes, they both work offline. They just have additional cloud-based detection methods, as do many software suits. Many other suites are moving to cloudbased detection.

 

Prevx will scan offline, but overall isn't as effective necessarily because the definitions are kept in the cloud; there are no updates other than program updates. I've been very impressed with it. It's also configurable like most good AV's to run alongside another one if you choose with process exclusion. Very fast, very light. Cost is not cheap though, but renewals and additional PC's aren't bad. Support forum for Prevx is at Wilders Security Forums.