Advice Request Does Windows Defender Antivirus cause Slowdown?

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Claw

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Feb 11, 2013
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I've been away for a while so I may have missed if this was asked before, but does Windows Defender cause any system slowdown that you are aware of? I'm running Windows 10 all up to date with Intel Core 2Duo cpu, 2.33GHz and 8.00GB RAM. Sorry if this has been asked before.
 

Ink

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Jan 8, 2011
22,361
Your CPU (C2D) does appear to be older than current generations of Intel CPUs (Core i3/5/7/9).

Does your system use a SSD or traditional HDD - this may have a significant impact on actual performance.
 

Moonhorse

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Every time i open up task manager while using windows defender, CPU/DISK load will go straight to 0
With comodo av the CPU/DISK usage were higher and took longer to settle down

In overall my system works faster/smoother/responsive with windows defender than with any other antivirus of choice...and after windows updates its less common to break something up, since its built-in on windows and the future windows updates are tested on system, where WD is enabled
 
F

ForgottenSeer 72227

I run it both on my gaming system and my laptop which is not as powerful as my gaming rig and I'm my experience I don't even notice it at all. In fact in my experience I notice a performance improvement when using WD, such as windows loading faster, programs loading faster, web pages loading faster, etc....

From what I've seen and from what I can tell you when using WD is that to me, Microsoft had gradually improved WD overall performance with each major release of W10. There are reports that the upcoming 1903 update is even better.

That being said, I agree with @Digmor Crusher that every AV will have an impact of some sort. In all honesty the only true way to know for sure is to try it out on your system too see for yourself. When it comes to performance for any product you will always get mixed reports as everyone's system is different both in hardware and software make up.
 

DeepWeb

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If you have a new Intel CPU, it will use the GPU apparently and that reduces CPU load. But in general, yes. That's why I recommend people to rather install any other free AV just to reduce the constant CPU and disk usage.
 

RejZoR

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Detection improved quite a bit and interface is nice and simple, but god it's slow as hell. It's been this bad since the beginning and they haven't improved it one bit through all these years. I frankly just don't get it.
 

BoraMurdar

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Aug 30, 2012
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Microsoft has every possible mean to make it the best optimized, fastest AV solution on the market with all compatibility advantages and telemetry but it simply doesn't.
I mean, everyone can test the performance by just downloading 10 random installers from Softpedia and put it in one folder. Then open Task Manager and open that folder. You will see the spikes in CPU and Disk usage. Scanning the folder by right click scan and opening it again doesn't improve accessing times or improves it insignificantly. So Windowd Defender caching is not something Microsoft can be proud of, especially in 2019.
Scan upon execution is what Windows Defender needs in my opinion.
 

Claw

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Feb 11, 2013
38
Thanks everyone for your help. At the moment I'm using Bitdefender Free without any problems so far but I really would like to stick to what Windows came with.
 

Atlas147

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Since it came with windows it makes sense that it would be the most optimized for the OS, however any AV would slow down your system as compared to no AV at all. Personally I feel that with other 3rd party AVs like avast or bitdefender you can set it so that it only scans the file when it executes or something, I'm not sure you have the same controls when it comes to windows defender although I could be wrong.

Overall if you like bitdefender free then I think you should stick to it, if it ain't broke don't fix it.
 

SumTingWong

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Well, I have a high end i7, plenty of RAM, and SSD for OS and I don't feel any slow down with WD. Older hardware might feel slow down with WD.
 
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oldschool

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Can we beat this dead horse some more, just for the fun of it? I have a mongrel PC with older i3 hardware and a newer SSD and WD does just fine. Yes, a bit slow on the folder scans but nothing that interrupts what I'm doing. It's typical automatic scans go completely un-noticed by me. Try it and keep it if you like it. If not, there are a ton of free and paid choices. I hate all AV suites - full of unnecessary bloat.
 

SumTingWong

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Question for those that say WD is light. What other AVs have you used and if possible what version/year?

I use Avast, Emsisoft, Bitdefender and now ESET.

Avast and ESET are lighter than Bitdefender and Emsisoft when it comes to performance impact and RAM usage on my end. Bitdefender is good on the flat surface but not on the deep surface.
 

Burrito

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Can we beat this dead horse some more, just for the fun of it?

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:

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.
 

oldschool

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Question for those that say WD is light. What other AVs have you used and if possible what version/year?

Sophos Free version 1.0 (or whatever it was, before Htiman, etc. added) 2017 to early '18. Nice web scanning but sloooow scans.

Bitdefender Free December 2018 cut my wifi repeatedly & blocked safe websites - horrible!

AVG Free early 2019 - I like a lot about it except the privacy invasion. It was perfect with VoodooShield but WD has more protection built-in protection.

Emsisoft was nice but heavier than WD. I only did a short trial and I wasn't going to pay.

So back to WD. I could use it for Smartscreen alone and rely on VS. In the end, it all depends on your PC and how you use it. :notworthy::barefoot::barefoot::barefoot::coffee:
 
F

ForgottenSeer 72227

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:)(y)
 
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