AV-Comparatives Consumer Performance Test October 2020

[SeriousHoax]

You can test that by downloading malware (even eicar will do). If it deletes it immediately, it scans on write as well. If it deletes it after you right-click the file, it scans on-access. If it deletes it after you open it, it’s only on-execution.
You might need to turn web-blocking off for this test.

F-Secure scans on write. Not sure if it scans on access too. The Avira engine is very light it seems and F-Secure probably has further optimized it to make it even lighter.

 

[ForgottenSeer 89360]

F-Secure scans on write. Not sure if it scans on access too. The Avira engine is very light it seems and F-Secure probably has further optimized it to make it even lighter.

There are many ways they could’ve done that. They may have disabled the AHEAD heuristics, may have replaced them with their own, or may have changed file listing methods... but these are my speculations anyway. I am curious to try F-Secure now
The Avira engine is not the lightest, but now it has received performance boost (seems like). Before it was always next to Windows Defender and Trend Micro on performance tests.

 

[SeriousHoax]

There are many ways they could’ve done that. They may have disabled the AHEAD heuristics, may have replaced them with their own, or may have changed file listing methods... but these are my speculations anyway. I am curious to try F-Secure now
The Avira engine is not the lightest, but now it has received performance boost (seems like). Before it was always next to Windows Defender and Trend Micro on performance tests.

Ok check it out. I saw you talking about malware removal quality few times like WD, AVG doing a proper cleanup of malware by deleting registry entries, scheduled task etc. My guess is, ESET, Emsisoft, F-Secure are not very good at malware removal. Maybe you can check this too for these products and more.

 

[ForgottenSeer 89360]

Ok check it out. I saw you talking about malware removal quality few times like WD, AVG doing a proper cleanup of malware by deleting registry entries, scheduled task etc. My guess is, ESET, Emsisoft, F-Secure are not very good at malware removal. Maybe you can check this too for these products and more.

Eset definitely doesn’t do good job, as it doesn’t touch anything else apart from the file discovered as infected. It doesn’t use correlation engine and doesn’t touch registry. We’ll see how F-Secure will perform.

Microsoft was very thorough in malware removal from the early ages of MSE. It didn’t detect much, but everything detected was removed properly. The AVG success is due to IDP constantly monitoring and sniffing around, even if you turn it off. It also uses a very harsh correlational engine that was developed even before AVG acquires Sana.

 

[ForgottenSeer 89360]

Ok check it out. I saw you talking about malware removal quality few times like WD, AVG doing a proper cleanup of malware by deleting registry entries, scheduled task etc. My guess is, ESET, Emsisoft, F-Secure are not very good at malware removal. Maybe you can check this too for these products and more.

I have installed it an hour ago and what I see so far isn't the lightest AV out there.

On scan, CPU usage goes up to 80% and remains.
On apps launch, CPU usage goes up to 17%.
On idle, there is a constant CPU usage going up and down, but it reaches 5-8% at times, which is also not the best I've seen.
On browsing, CPU usage is around 2-3%
Memory usage is about 410 megs.
I've taken screenshots of everything and might crop them and publish them later.

UI/UX and protection are great, but web blocking could be one idea better.

Whilst these values are not high, this is not different than any other AV. I'll leave it few more days before I conclude.

 

[amico81]

Whilst these values are not high, this is not different than any other AV. I'll leave it few more days before I conclude.

what are your 3 av's with best performance?

 

[SeriousHoax]

I have installed it an hour ago and what I see so far isn't the lightest AV out there.

On scan, CPU usage goes up to 80% and remains.
On apps launch, CPU usage goes up to 17%.
On idle, there is a constant CPU usage going up and down, but it reaches 5-8% at times, which is also not the best I've seen.
On browsing, CPU usage is around 2-3%
Memory usage is about 410 megs.
I've taken screenshots of everything and might crop them and publish them later.

UI/UX and protection are great, but web blocking could be one idea better.

Whilst these values are not high, this is not different than any other AV. I'll leave it few more days before I conclude.

I have also noticed similar behavior. I even saw it using disk on idle. Maybe it requires few hours/days/a full system scan to make things normal. I didn't use it for long enough. But the PC was fast and responsive.

 

[ForgottenSeer 89360]

I have also noticed similar behavior. I even saw it using disk on idle. Maybe it requires few hours/days/a full system scan to make things normal. I didn't use it for long enough. But the PC was fast and responsive.

I’ll do both full scan and let it settle. Yes, everything feels fast and responsive.

 

[ForgottenSeer 89360]

what are your 3 av's with best performance?

I’m not trying to promote, but Eset, Avast/AVG and McAfee are the lightest I’ve tested. Bitdefender comes close.

 

[amico81]

I can confirm this for Mcafee AV Plus...Out of the Box it is the fastest av on my setup. They are using an app booster tool and scan only on execution.

 

[ForgottenSeer 89360]

I can confirm this for Mcafee AV Plus...Out of the Box it is the fastest av on my setup. They are using an app booster tool and scan only on execution.

I have installed it on a pretty old and cheap laptop and it runs fine.

 

[Gandalf_The_Grey]

I think in order to get a fair overview you must configure all AV's to scan execution only.
Or are we just talking about the default settings?

 

[ForgottenSeer 89360]

I think in order to get a fair overview you must configure all AV's to scan execution only.
Or are we just talking about the default settings?

I went through F-Secure settings, but didn’t see any setting of this sort. I don’t like scanning only on execution, so I never configure an AV this way. McAfee doesn’t have any settings, you can only turn protection on and off, so we have no choice there.

 

[Gandalf_The_Grey]

I went through F-Secure settings, but didn’t see any setting of this sort. I don’t like scanning only on execution, so I never configure an AV this way. McAfee doesn’t have any settings, you can only turn protection on and off, so we have no choice there.

Yes, you are correct, there is not much you can change in the settings of F-Secure and some others, but it still feels like comparing apples and oranges to me.

 

[ForgottenSeer 89360]

Yes, you are correct, there is not much you can change in the settings of F-Secure and some others, but it still feels like comparing apples and oranges to me.

Not really, because Eset, AVG and Bitdefender all scan on-write, on-access and on-execution, like F-Secure. If you have a look at my Avast and AVG reviews, you can see their values on Deep Scan, on browsing and on idle.
It’s only McAfee that scans on-execution, so we can drop it out of the comparison.

I believe my other reviews include these values as well.

 

[SeriousHoax]

Emsisoft is another that by default scans on execution only so it's gives everyone a very light impression. But it has three options, 1) Default, which scans on execution only, 2) Thorough, which scans on write + execution, 3) Paranoid, which scans on access + write + execution. Switching to Through mode is what I do right after installing Emsisoft and it still is very fast and light. McAfee don't have any way to change this which is frustrating.

 

[SeriousHoax]

Not really, because Eset, AVG and Bitdefender all scan on-write, on-access and on-execution, like F-Secure. If you have a look at my Avast and AVG reviews, you can see their values on Deep Scan, on browsing and on idle.
It’s only McAfee that scans on-execution, so we can drop it out of the comparison.

I believe my other reviews include these values as well.

Btw, one thing about AVG I noticed, after installing the very first time you run any application, it takes longer than average for it to run with AVG. This happened for every single app I tested. After that they always run fast even after restart, two days of usage. This match with exactly what AVC report showed. Now I don't know if this behavior returns few days later if AVG rebuilds its cache or something but anyway it is something I noticed.

 

[ForgottenSeer 89360]

Btw, one thing about AVG I noticed, after installing the very first time you run any application, it takes longer than average for it to run with AVG. This happened for every single app I tested. After that they always run fast even after restart, two days of usage. This match exactly what AVC report showed. Now I don't know if this behavior returns few days later if AVG rebuilds its cache or something but anyway it is something I noticed.

AVG and Avast have copied some Norton stuff. Streaming updates were known as Norton Pulse updates and their whitelisting is similar to Norton Insight/Bitdefender Photon.
The first time you use a file, it’s exempt from whitelisting. Afterwards, if it’s in their whitelist, it won’t be touched again. This explains why on first launch everything is slower.
The whitelist doesn’t get erased, but over time files trust may be revoked.

 

[SeriousHoax]

AVG and Avast have copied some Norton stuff. Streaming updates were known as Norton Pulse updates and their whitelisting is similar to Norton Insight/Bitdefender Photon.
The first time you use a file, it’s exempt from whitelisting. Afterwards, if it’s in their whitelist, it won’t be touched again. This explains why on first launch everything is slower.
The whitelist doesn’t get erased, but over time files trust may be revoked.

I see, all good then.

 

[ForgottenSeer 89360]

After several hours of usage, F-Secure is literally a synonymous of lightness and speed... It's like a cheetah.
Protection is good against executables and PowerShell offenders, but it missed the first Java malware sample I found and PowerShell.exe & rundll32.exe were launched, actively working. I still have the sample on my desktop. I am yet to test it against maldocs.

Missed sample 1: VirusTotal
Missed sample 2 (this one didn't trigger any reaction from FS and broke my MS Office... now it won't launch at all):

VirusTotal

VirusTotal

www.virustotal.com