Question for those that say WD is light. What other AVs have you used and if possible what version/year?
I've tried various AV's over the last couple of years: Eset, Bitdefender, Sophos Home Premium, F-Secure, GData, Emsisoft, Norton, Avast, Avira, Kaspersky, might be missing a few, but overall I find WD light in my experience using it.
Just to clarify, I am in no way saying these programs are slow as molasses, but I just find that lately WD's performance has improved over all. All these programs I've listed are very good programs, I dont have any personal vendetta against any one of them, but like
@oldschool, I just find that most 3rd party AV's have too much bloat, are in your face too much with ad's, or constantly throwing pop ups to make it feel likt they are doing something. I want an AV with very good protection, doesn't annoy me, is not in my face, doesn't have usless modules (ie: passowrd managers) and best of all, just works. I just like the fact that WD is always up to date and always works with every update/major release from Microsoft.
C'mon now Oldschool, it's fun to have the same discussion for the 20th time... And that's probably why many of us take MT breaks. The repetitiveness is there... and does get old sometimes.
Back on topic.
WD is heavy. This has been demonstrated over and over by multiple test organizations. Here is one recent test:
View attachment 213127
As you can see, it's not just a little heavy. It's a boulder compared to rocks.
But every system is different. And when performance is measured in a few seconds or less, there is little discernable impact for many.
@Raiden is a very credible guy. If he says there is virtually no impact on his system, I believe him.
But to me, this is not a difficult debate. It's been settled many times. WD is HEAVY. But, YMMV. And for many, it does seem to vary.
Horse beating full stop.
Thanks for the mention
For me I'm just speaking from my experiences. I don't want to make it sound like the ones who say they find it slow are wrong, it's just not been my expereince. As I've mentioned, every system will vary and every AV including WD will have some sort of impact, but the only way to tell for sure is to try it out for yourself.
WD can be slow when opening a folder with lots of exes for example, but in the vast majority of tasks that one uses a computer for, it's barely noticeable IMO. I don't mean this in negative way towards anyone at all, but I do stuggle sometimes trying to understand with the advent of the internet and the ability to re-download virtually every program out there, why do people still have folders with tons of exe's in them? If I need to reinstall a program, I go to the vendor's site and re-download it, install it, then delete the exe.
Also I've noticed that there have been members here who use to find WD heavy and have recently tried it on the current version, as well as the upcoming version of W10 and have found it to be ligher than before. To me this tells me that MS is indeed improving it's performance and it's not jsut a select few just saying it's light. Again, I mean this in the most friendliness of ways, but those who have found WD heavy, when was the last time you tried WD? Again, I am in no way saying you are wrong, just currious, thats all.
At the end of the day, I don't think WD's performance is as bad as it's made out to be, but the only true way to know for sure, is to try it out for yourself, same goes for any AV. There are plenty of great options to choose from, choose whats works best for you