In 2018, 500MB RAM usage is not the end of the world.
Google Chrome is using 667MB for me right now and I've seen it use 1.1GB on my system on numerous occasions. Firefox isn't too different to Google Chrome for me in this aspect.
The built-in Photo viewer application in Windows 10? I've speculated it being "suspended" whilst occupying 130MB RAM in the past. Suspended state because that's how UWP works for Windows processes when you close them down (performance feature so when you re-use the application it is already in-memory).
In 2018 you're going to want to be using a 64-bit environment (not just due to the performance flexibility but also for security improvements) with at-least 6GB RAM and a decent processor in my opinion.
At the end of the day, your memory is supposed to be used up. Having memory and not using it is nothing but a waste of memory. If you had 4GB RAM and your security product was using on average around 500MB RAM but you didn't actually need to use the full remainder of your memory, and you could still do all your work with your other software without the system becoming slow to a noticeable level which starts to become irritating, then there's nothing to really worry about at all.
chromium father of chrome + ublockOring + https everywhere, in my Laptop just swallows 160mb, I never saw my computer consume 1GB in chromium,only if me open several YouTube tabs at the same time LOL! I would be severely worried for these numbers..
what you say is true but what if the person needs the extra memory in other activities of productivity, entertainment instead of giving priority to a single background task that is kept permanently on high and static of consumption, even bad for the computer's with short battery duration, I'm sorry to have our divergences. although I will do an increase in memory, although expensive $$$$ lately.
EAM usually uses around 200MB RAM for me. Its maximum usage was 250-260MB RAM. Strangely its using only 66 MB RAM right now. I have not enabled memory usage optimization. Emsisoft support said optimization uses more HDD/SSD and less RAM. Since I have slow HDD, I'm better with it using RAM.
the emsisoft 60mb on process that is the memory optimization on tab configuration, where the real compsumption goes to private virtual memory cached inside hidden disk as memory, Memory optimization is redirect consumption from real ram to pagefile. You can see it hidden with process hacker, or systernals process explorer. it is not real what you thinking viewing on windows taskmanager due windows itself send to private hidden process .