New Update Emsisoft 2023.5: More performance improvements

[Bot]

We believe in delivering top-of-the-line cybersecurity solutions that are both effective and efficient. This update comes with numerous performance optimizations.

The post New in 2023.5: More performance improvements appeared first on Emsisoft | Cybersecurity Blog.

 

[Kongo]

Well, damn...

 

[Minimalist]

In past I had to use "a2start /warp" command to prevent GUI process from using 100% CPU when idle.
Does anybody know if this workaround still needs to be applied or was problem fixed with one of later updates?

 

[Oldie1950]

In past I had to use "a2start /warp" command to prevent GUI process from using 100% CPU when idle.
Does anybody know if this workaround still needs to be applied or was problem fixed with one of later updates?

Do you mean that the opened GUI takes 100% of the processor power? This is definitely not the case for me. On the other hand, I notice that when updating signatures etc., other programs, especially the Internet browser, are slowed down or stopped completely for a few seconds.

 

[Trooper]

This sounds interesting. Makes me want to give it a go.

 

[Minimalist]

Do you mean that the opened GUI takes 100% of the processor power? This is definitely not the case for me.

No the problem was after one of their updates caused 100% CPU usage even when GUI was closed. As I remember it was a problem with some GPUs and hardware acceleration? Their workaround was to run a2start with /warp switch which disabled HW acceleration and solved the problem. Since there was never any info on their (now deleted) forum that this problem was solved, I always enabled that workaround - just to be safe.
I was hoping that someone that was experiencing same problem, knows if workaround is still needed to prevent high CPU usage (on systems that had the problem at the time).

 

[Trooper]

Has anyone tried this out to see if there are any performance gains?

 

[ErzCrz]

Some in my initial test with it. Sat at more like 400mb rather than 600mb on first install but I only tested it briefly. Will see if it improves further.

 

[piter]

Still 600MB on my 16GB ram PC.
Previous version 2023.4 caused strange system hiccups on both my PCs. They occured after I tried to launch 2-3 programs at once, probably emsisoft blocked their launch for scanning and caused system pause.
I ignored it because it was not major issue (I think emsisoft is slowing down more and more with every update for last 12 months).
However after updating to 2023.5 I observe CONSTANT disk writes!!! Every few seconds emsisoft comm service is writing to my ssd. It can happen for hours, generating many GBs of written data per day!!! Sometimes writing does not start, but it does after rebooting pc again. When it starts it does not seem to ever end - it can write for hours.

This is expressed in write peaks every few seconds in task manager. I reported this to support, because there is no official forum. They demanded many logs and are investigating this. I do not expect them to be able to help with this, because they failed to solve problem with launching games before. Software was getting stuck in quiet mode for some reason (auto enabled, no ability to disable it, not related to quiet mode setting in ui) and did not want to scan launching games - they did not launch until I rebooted PC or emsisoft package.

Spoiler

 

[Minimalist]

I tested EAM yesterday and on my system service was using around 600 MB of RAM (same as with previous versions). Application startup also wasn't noticeably faster than before on my computer. First application startup is - same as before - still slower (probably because of online check that is performed).
Web browsing is slower than browsing when I use Eset. Eset scans all http(s) traffic and is still faster than EAM, which performs only DNS level check against a list of bad web addresses.
There was no CPU hogging by a2start.exe even without / warp switch.
That just experience I had on my system.

 

[ErzCrz]

The RAM usage fluctuates 400ish to 600ish but malware scan took just under 4 minutes. Some Edge browsing slows but not consistently. I've yet to try it with Firefox but I'm experimenting with different setups at the moment. Overall not noticeable lags and some other factors my have contributed to slows here and there but will keep testing it out

 

[Anthony Qian]

I tested EAM yesterday and on my system service was using around 600 MB of RAM (same as with previous versions). Application startup also wasn't noticeably faster than before on my computer. First application startup is - same as before - still slower (probably because of online check that is performed).
Web browsing is slower than browsing when I use Eset. Eset scans all http(s) traffic and is still faster than EAM, which performs only DNS level check against a list of bad web addresses.
There was no CPU hogging by a2start.exe even without / warp switch.
That just experience I had on my system.

Same here. I tried the new version and did not notice significant improvement in terms of performance. Not sure how Emsisoft came to the conclusion that performance improved by 50%.

Also, I feel it's hard for a modern antivirus to improve its overall performance by 50% without changing its detection engine. Unlike antivirus products of the past, most modern antivirus products do not significantly affect the PC performance.

 

[piter]

It looks like constant writes to ssd is new normal for emsisoft now.
Support is not able to help: "This 5 sec IO is by design. It is writing EDR events into the local database"
They "might consider disabling this in a future update when Emsisoft is in Local only management".

So it looks like all this data would be sent over internet but I only have local management (I do not need cloud to know everything about all of my files) so all this junk is now written into local database.
In previous updates - there was simply ZERO writing. Now it just writes locally instead of uploading tons of useless data to cloud.
Unfortunately emsisoft is still easiest AV to use. Kaspersky, eset, g data, norton - they are all troublesome when they detect someting as a virus, you have to restore it from quarantine, add it to exclusions manually etc. In emsisoft I simply click ALLOW and app launches fine.

I even managed to get hold of legacy emsisoft (necessary when trying to install on win 7 as new versions do not work). Unfortunately it auto-updates itself to latest version on win 10.

Currently writes are at about 90MB/min - after 88 min of pc displaying desktop I have 8GB written by displayed by process hacker.

HWinfo64 shows that smart parameter increased by 8GB after 40min (however it counts total system writes only).

So with 12h of PC use per day I will get 63+ GB daily writes - just from antivirus in idle.... (previously I had 10-15GB writes per day, counting whole system usage, browser etc.).

 

[piter]

As always I had to find solution for my own. When you switch update channel to delayed, app downloads 2023.3 version which does not have constant write problem. You are asked to reboot app (and preferably PC too) and voila - no ssd writes!
I think bug might have already been introduced in 2023.4: "Improved protection state reporting to Management Console".

 

[piter]

Update: support claims they pinpointed bug and will release fix in future update.

 

[piter]

Issue is finally fixed in 2023.6 version. I solved problem myself before by disabling emsisoft communication service via services.msc. However now after enabling it back - it does not save anymore. So it looks like to work properly.