Do Virus Scanners Slow Down Your System?

[Guest]

You missed a very important benchmark: file copying (either from one folder to another on same PC, or over the network). I have noticed SIGNIFICANT slowdowns in file copy operations (esp. multiple small files) when AV is running. So much so that I routinely disable AV when copying a large file set from one location to another. I'd be interested to see which products fared best in this category.

 

[ashwinipn]

I am intrigued by the exclusion of free softwares that do the job equally, in many a cases, better than studied suites. It would have been useful to compare different approaches to the issue. For example Microsoft offering that is free of cost would have made a sense for readers. Additionally, cloud antivirus such as Panda cloud that use very less system resources should have been included.
The biggest drawback is not comparing the system's performance when antivirus suite is actually scanning. A lot of problem related to the speed is faced when they actually run and users annoyance is directly proportional to the time an antivirus suite takes to complete the scan and causes system to slow down, rather than sitting in background. I have found (real world scenario, not theoretical) that real-time monitoring also affects adversely.

 

[apukjij]

this article is good for advanced users, but what about the millions of peeps like me who have 1gb of memory using XP, with a single core processor. i bet the results would have been drastically different!

 

[flitcraft33]

We definitely see a noticeable slowdown during active scans and updates with McAfee and XP. With Windows 7 64 BIT (NOT, repeat NOT 32 bit) we see no noticeable impact at any point.

 

[flitcraft33]

[citation][nom]ashwinipn[/nom]I am intrigued by the exclusion of free softwares that do the job equally, in many a cases, better than studied suites. It would have been useful to compare different approaches to the issue. For example Microsoft offering that is free of cost would have made a sense for readers. Additionally, cloud antivirus such as Panda cloud that use very less system resources should have been included.The biggest drawback is not comparing the system's performance when antivirus suite is actually scanning. A lot of problem related to the speed is faced when they actually run and users annoyance is directly proportional to the time an antivirus suite takes to complete the scan and causes system to slow down, rather than sitting in background. I have found (real world scenario, not theoretical) that real-time monitoring also affects adversely.[/citation]

Generally speaking, free software does not react speedily enough for critical business use. We have used McAfee for seven plus years at my company, and that in combination with other security measures and good end user cooperation have resulted in a 100% virus free network for over seven years even though we extensively use the internet every day. This is due in no small part to McAfee's generally fast response and the availability of CUSTOM extra DAT files, often in minutes. Good stuff which freeware doesn't match.

 

[alabamer]

This article is a little misleading by stating that there isn't a performance hit for the most part.

It isn't until the article is over that we get the bombshell: The A/V suites aren't even doing anything during their tests!

 

[lsorense]

Perhaps antivirus doesn't affect performance but I suspect it highly affects battery life on laptops. I noticed a virtual machine with windows xp was doing constant disk accesses (a few bytes every few seconds). This of course would prevent the harddrive on a laptop from spinning down. In my case I was running AVG, and when I uninstalled AVG the problem went away. I have no idea why AVG thinks it needs to write to the disk every few seconds, or at least cause some other part of windows to do so.

 

[ashwinipn]

I don't know about the corporate needs much. I can talk only on the basis of my personal experience. I have used paid suite in the past and have used free solutions as well. I had more positive experiences (antivirus as well as performance) when I used free solution. There are plenty of articles on the web where the conclusion is generally "more or less equal performance" is mentioned. Thankfully, I did away with all the problems ever since shifted to Linux (Ubuntu).
Another evidence for people to evaluate. I work in a lab of a big hospital and Norton Security Enterprise (Version 11 I suppose) takes care of the issue over there. Every week during scheduled scan, it is nearly impossible to work/browse because of the slowness without getting frustrated. The process can't be killed or set for later scan since it is controlled by facility-wide system administrator. The solution I apply is to restart the computer so that till next week I am spared from the performance hit.

 

[sidran32]

While today we can say that performance won't be hit as much as it would be previously, it does get hit, in my experience. I have run my computers immediately before and after an AV installation and the boot time as well as general performance of the computer was noticeably negatively affected post AV installation.

 

[neiroatopelcc]

[citation][nom]ashwinipn[/nom]I don't know about the corporate needs much. I can talk only on the basis of my personal experience. I have used paid suite in the past and have used free solutions as well. I had more positive experiences (antivirus as well as performance) when I used free solution. There are plenty of articles on the web where the conclusion is generally "more or less equal performance" is mentioned. Thankfully, I did away with all the problems ever since shifted to Linux (Ubuntu).Another evidence for people to evaluate. I work in a lab of a big hospital and Norton Security Enterprise (Version 11 I suppose) takes care of the issue over there. Every week during scheduled scan, it is nearly impossible to work/browse because of the slowness without getting frustrated. The process can't be killed or set for later scan since it is controlled by facility-wide system administrator. The solution I apply is to restart the computer so that till next week I am spared from the performance hit.[/citation]
Some antivirus software can be configured to pause scanning while the system is in use (kaspersky for instance). I don't know if symantec has this feature, but you might want to ask your systems dude to check it. It's the better option for him, if the alternative is that you force your system to not scan at all.

 

[wdanforth]

They should run these test varying the amount of system RAM. I know memory is cheap. But the average Joe User is running a computer bought 3 or 4 year ago with 1 GB tops. They will take a huge hit.

 

[phasebaby]

I agree Norton 360 is great and I have been using it for three years. I buy it when it is on sale for almost half price. It is good for people that don't maintain the security on their system because it does most things automatically. Norton has really improved three years ago as it is not bloated and does a great job.

 

[ashwinipn]

[citation][nom]wdanforth[/nom]They should run these test varying the amount of system RAM. I know memory is cheap. But the average Joe User is running a computer bought 3 or 4 year ago with 1 GB tops. They will take a huge hit.[/citation]

Thanks for your suggestion. I can't interfere with the institute's functioning. So, although I don't run scan by the institute, I have set up my personal schedule to run a full scan it every night at 2:00 AM. Also, since Norton was not taking care of spywares, keyloggres, adwares etc., I have installed Spybot search and destroy on my system and other systems in the lab. Additionally I use Secunia PSI to take care of the updates and Ccleaner for other system maintenance. So, I am conscious to these security issues and implement where don't have choice left on me. At home, as I told before, have shifted to Ubuntu Linux and very happy with its functionality, usability, and performance as per my needs. Anyways, thanks for your suggestions once again.

 

[deletemach_kernel]

Damn no .....I am right now typing using a single core p4...... and test or no test....i can tell you from experience (have tried every possible av scanner out there) that NOD32 is the only scanner that doesnt bring my system to a standstill.

almost every other scanner after install brings down the system speed noticeably and welll....its pretty snappy with no av installed....

however the drop in performance for me is not much using nod32 or kaspersky....... anything else and after a few days....bam .... im crawling......

 

[deletemach_kernel]

Norton has VASTLY improved compared to what it used to be. I use Norton 360, and I have to say that it has been a great product.

I agree....it really has improved

 

[deletemach_kernel]

Try installing anti-virus software on this configuration and see what happens:
Intel Celeron M 360 @ 1.40GHz
512 MB RAM


I just want to point out that anti-virus software CANNOT be installed on all computers.

that just made me laugh..... :lol:

and i thought my p4 was slow........ but yeah...... on these systems...you really cannot run an av....... but without it your doomed when running xp...

so i went with eset....zero problems..... slight slowdown but its better than having your pc infested with lord knows what....

and yes av cannot be installed on all pc's.....

 

[Lutfij]

you've left ou ta lot of the softwares available - like Bitdefender's security soultion...and the test setup is based on a fresh install...not what MOST users will have right now. Its usually the load of crap stored on PC's that slow down a virus scanner.

 

[avatar_raq]

[citation][nom]JimKiler[/nom]you will not test MS Security Essentials but you will use their logo in the article?[/citation]
Yeah I noticed and when I found out MSE was not included it was hilarious!

 

[hangfirew8]

An excellent article, including the CPU scaling, and very applicable to the Tom's audience, if not their family and clients.

Many here have pointed out the Atom and/or low RAM threshold issue. I can confirm this from personal experience. A family member's XP P4 system had 512MB RAM, a real slug running Norton A/V. After reloading XP it was suddenly light, fast, and responsive, until installing AVG Suite and then it was a slug again. The issue wasn't Norton or AVG per se, but a RAM threshold issue. Upgrading to 2GB fixed the issue and extended the life of the P4 for another year or two of e-mail and web surfing. (I also replaced the 5 year old HDD just because it was 5 years old).

Is it Tom's responsibility to test down to these low RAM thresholds? I would argue the system needed a memory upgrade anyway, and knowledgeable Tom's readers should diagnose that issue as a system spec issue, not an A/V Suite performance issue.

As for freeware, assembling your own pseudo-suite is fine, but comparing just free A/V versus free multi-vendor suite versus paid is a real apples to oranges situation that could end up with a lot of finger pointing. Really such a comparison would warrant an article all its own due to the complexity, with the whole free-versus-paid debate coming into play.

So, good job, I think the article is just fine as-is.

 

[lsilvest]

I agree about the improvement in Norton. I stopped using them in 2005 and gave it a shot last year and have been pleasantly surprised. I use the Internet Security and it has some nice features in addition to the AV and fireway.

The negative comment about Norton is apparently from someone with an underpowered system or other issues.

 

[redhedsuck]

What about ESET Nod32? This program, from my experience is one of the best out there and I notice almost no speed descrease across the board. It's gained a lot of market share in the past couple years.

 

[ashwinipn]

[citation][nom]redhedsuck[/nom]What about ESET Nod32? This program, from my experience is one of the best out there and I notice almost no speed descrease across the board. It's gained a lot of market share in the past couple years.[/citation]

Regarding criticism of Norton and underpowered system, I will let everyone decide. I have a Dell precision 380 (Pentuim 3 GHz with 2 GB DDR2 RAM) running Windows XP at my workplace. We have systems running on faster processors and more RAMs as well as slower and less RAMs in our lab and other people also experience the slowness due to Symantec Endpoint Protection Enterprise Edition (Ver 11) and use similar strategies of restarting the system to work peacefully. also, although it is a complete suite administered site-wide, everybody in our lab has Spybot search and destroy installed to deal with spywares, adwares etc. So, as other people have mentioned, that Symantec may have issues with older OS (e.g., XP) and does well with Vista and Windows 7.

 

[WarraWarra]

LMAO dudes this question is answered ages ago.
Have you ever use Norton or McAfee DUH.

There is only 2 half decent anti virus software out there Avast anti-virus and Comodo CIS that you can use while playing online and nothing else or still better have 2 ssd with windows version of choice and no anti-virus then play with hat online and later reboot onto normal windows with anti-virus and scan that gaming SSD / HDD.

You should have included the "buy OEM hardware" and format then reinstall with what you want not the bloatware / other useless software before using and being upset about the lame hardware that was supposed to be so great.

 

[Guest]

Hupiscratch is right. I use MSE for the very reason that the time from typing my password to getting to my desktop is not affected by MSE. It takes on second, or one spin of the "aero" hourglass circle. Nortion Endpoint and Antivirus tack on about 10 seconds each.

I would venture a guess that microsoft software is more efficient working with an operating system made by the same company.

 

[Guest]

WHERE THE HELL IS BOOT TIME AND SHUT DOWN?