Advice Request I need some advice ; security meets gaming

[mekelek]

I do want to test Avira for malware hub, But on my laptop is terrible slow and i dont know how to protect my vm enough for my gaming pc...
If i find a way how to protect the vm i will start testing it.

you don't need to protect anything if you're running in a VM. maybe run a VPN inside the VM but not necessary.
VM escaping malware is rare as a polar bear.

 

[RoboMan]

I am currently using Windows Defender + Voodooshield Pro. Works great. No performance issues at all.

Depending on the specs of your laptop, you probably wont have a problem running either of the applications you listed. Emsisoft runs light and so does Kaspersky. Unless you configure Kaspersky for Maximum security then it might slow your system down a bit but no real need for that unless your paranoid.

Pretty much your choice in which you would feel more comfortable running.

I will stick with this opinion as it's my own as well

 

[Hector1]

Avast + Comodo Firewall
Avast + Vodooshield (+ optional WFC)
WD + Comodo Firewall
WD+ Voodoshield (+ optional WFC)
They are all free, very light and secure config

 

[Durden]

isn't that PC rocking a 7700K equivalent in notebook CPUs?
in that case, even a heavy AV won't make a difference once you're ingame.
Kaspersky has Gaming mode which halts every non-necessary operation. Idk about Avast, WD + Voodoo is good combo too, tho I have noticed performance drops while running some app that Voodoo is protecting (ie: Chrome)

Yep.. it's i7 7700hq .. I guess it won't affect performance..actually WD + VS combo I noticed the same think on my other machine...

any way I I'm tempted to try KAV on default settings.. if it didn't go well I'll go with Emsisoft

Thank you everyone for your advices .. much appreciated

 

[Parsh]

you don't need to protect anything if you're running in a VM. maybe run a VPN inside the VM but not necessary.
VM escaping malware is rare as a polar bear.

Malware escaping the VM may be a rare sight but there are ways that malware authors may be able to exploit to propagate the threat from the "infected" VMs, varying by the connection mode (NAT/Bridged/..). Each mode has its own drawbacks right?
A malware like a well-crafted worm may spread on the other Bridged/NAT connected VMs that are connected on a common adapter and spread through the LAN... Should be a less worrisome case for home users probably.
There is one difference in case NAT mode is used in VMplayer or VirtualBox, data for the guest machine will channel through only the selected port(s) using the NAT service, but again, an attacker might be able to bounce to another port using some loopholes. Thus, believing here will be all about confidence on the security concept being applied and the possibilities of kinds of loopholes.
However in most cases, a good s/w based firewall on the host machine should tackle such kind of infections via the network.
Also, it's good to use a VPN on the host machine (again, depending on the mode eg. NAT) since there are chances that the guest VPN may not activate immediately on boot and in the meanwhile, malicious communications and leaking of your IP (etc) can occur.

 

[Vasudev]

isn't that PC rocking a 7700K equivalent in notebook CPUs?

Nope you are totally mistaken. 7700K CPU on clevo laptop will obliterate 6700HQ or perhaps any HQ. The difference is like a day and night. 6700HQ can barely keep up the clocks steadily on high load.
Your best bet would be HK series chips, it can match desktop CPu or even outclass them.
A user just hit 5GHz on air cooling with his alienware 17 r4 with 7820HK and GTX 1080 (>200W VBIOS mod)

 

[mekelek]

Nope you are totally mistaken. 7700K CPU on clevo laptop will obliterate 6700HQ or perhaps any HQ. The difference is like a day and night. 6700HQ can barely keep up the clocks steadily on high load.
Your best bet would be HK series chips, it can match desktop CPu or even outclass them.
A user just hit 5GHz on air cooling with his alienware 17 r4 with 7820HK and GTX 1080 (>200W VBIOS mod)

Yes you're right, but it's still decent enough to not have any visible impact caused by an AV.

 

[mekelek]

Yep.. it's i7 7700hq .. I guess it won't affect performance..actually WD + VS combo I noticed the same think on my other machine...

any way I I'm tempted to try KAV on default settings.. if it didn't go well I'll go with Emsisoft

Thank you everyone for your advices .. much appreciated

KAV should be light enough with good protection, imo VS doesn't need WD, but it won't hurt.
You might want to try out Bitdefender, FSecure, Vipre (doing really good in tests) too before you choose. Trials for all these are available.

 

[DJ Panda]

I'm going to be the guy that says DO NOT use Comodo Firewall. It caused my computer to become a crawl and it was even worse uninstalling it.. Avast Free is good with it's gaming mode and fairly light system impact. Not security related, but Process Lasso set to Highest Performance is really good. IMO

 

[RoboMan]

For your interest, i'm getting my gaming laptop (very similar to yours) and i'm planning to configure it the way i have configured my office laptop (Intel Core i5, 8GB RAM, crappy graphics):

• Windows Defender (tweaked through PowerShell)
• VoodooShield (Always ON)
• Windows Firewall Control (w/notifications)

All three programs on idle consume 90MB of RAM and vary from 0% to 0,1% CPU usage.

Optional additional software i added:

-KeyScrambler

 

[amico81]

my experience with av's and gaming system:

Avast-> very light
Eset Nod32 -> very light
Panda IS -> very light
Panda IS + ZAM with Pandora Cloud -> very light
EAM -> light
Avira Pro -> light
Kaspersky IS -> ok

new performance test from av-comparatives:
Performance-Test - AV-Comparatives

P.S: I'm a gamer too ;-)

 

[Durden]

I'm going to be the guy that says DO NOT use Comodo Firewall. It caused my computer to become a crawl and it was even worse uninstalling it.. Avast Free is good with it's gaming mode and fairly light system impact. Not security related, but Process Lasso set to Highest Performance is really good. IMO

hahaha , I feel that bro, I won't even dare go to their website ! I had horrible experiences with their products plus I don't like their company

 

[Durden]

For your interest, i'm getting my gaming laptop (very similar to yours) and i'm planning to configure it the way i have configured my office laptop (Intel Core i5, 8GB RAM, crappy graphics):

• Windows Defender (tweaked through PowerShell)
• VoodooShield (Always ON)
• Windows Firewall Control (w/notifications)

All three programs on idle consume 90MB of RAM and vary from 0% to 0,1% CPU usage.

Optional additional software i added:

-KeyScrambler

thank you .. yes this laptop is a beast, however, that crappy mcafee is gonna be waiting for you -_- , also if you ; like me ; had a problem with brightness being set to that max regardless if you turn it all the way down , just update you graphics driver thru NVidia experience ..
about WD tweaking , are you talking about enabling the PUA feature ?
actually this configuration minus WFC was the one in my mind .. I said I might consider Kaspersky , But I've never found it light and that's on numerous laptops . that's why I'm hesitant to even trial it .

 

[Durden]

my experience with av's and gaming system:

Avast-> very light
Eset Nod32 -> very light
Panda IS -> very light
Panda IS + ZAM with Pandora Cloud -> very light
EAM -> light
Avira Pro -> light
Kaspersky IS -> ok

new performance test from av-comparatives:
Performance-Test - AV-Comparatives

P.S: I'm a gamer too ;-)

hmm .. now I don't like avast , and I don't have a key to eset plus I have lost belief in it recently , Panda I won't dare go near it (horrible experience two years ago)
however I have a key to EIS , and I guess can get 1 year KAV for free .. now I'm thinking of either trying WD + VS or going for EIS .
thank you

 

[RoboMan]

thank you .. yes this laptop is a beast, however, that crappy mcafee is gonna be waiting for you -_- , also if you ; like me ; had a problem with brightness being set to that max regardless if you turn it all the way down , just update you graphics driver thru NVidia experience ..
about WD tweaking , are you talking about enabling the PUA feature ?
actually this configuration minus WFC was the one in my mind .. I said I might consider Kaspersky , But I've never found it light and that's on numerous laptops . that's why I'm hesitant to even trial it .

I've had performance issues with Kaspersky as well, i'd not stick with it. I actually got a few tips from @pablozi on tweaking a couple of different items. Feel free to message me so i can pass them to you if interested

Expecting you're not a happy clicker, Windows Defender should do great for you, but i'd add WFC as a nice complement.

Thanks for the brightness tips!

 

[mekelek]

hmm .. now I don't like avast , and I don't have a key to eset plus I have lost belief in it recently , Panda I won't dare go near it (horrible experience two years ago)
however I have a key to EIS , and I guess can get 1 year KAV for free .. now I'm thinking of either trying WD + VS or going for EIS .
thank you

ESET's HIPS seem to be ineffective against Ransomwares but effective against everything else. It's a very light and decent solution.
I haven't heard any good about Panda.
EIS and KIS are on the top of the food chain, and I wouldn't personally run VD on Always On, I can see some pretty heavy CPU usage from VD time to time on my 8 core beast. (15-20% CPU usage on 8 cores is a lot)

 

[Durden]

ESET's HIPS seem to be ineffective against Ransomwares but effective against everything else. It's a very light and decent solution.
I haven't heard any good about Panda.
EIS and KIS are on the top of the food chain, and I wouldn't personally run VD on Always On, I can see some pretty heavy CPU usage from VD time to time on my 8 core beast. (15-20% CPU usage on 8 cores is a lot)

That reminds me.. do you think installing games on the ssd gives better performance ?
I noticed that No Man's sky was significantly better on ssd compared to a 7200 rpm hdd.. maybe this applies to open worlds only ! Dunno
I want to get battlefield 1 , And I'm thinking if I should install this "morbidly obese" game ~ >80GB~ on my 256 ssd..
Any ideas ?

 

[Vasudev]

That reminds me.. do you think installing games on the ssd gives better performance ?
I noticed that No Man's sky was significantly better on ssd compared to a 7200 rpm hdd.. maybe this applies to open worlds only ! Dunno
I want to get battlefield 1 , And I'm thinking if I should install this "morbidly obese" game ~ >80GB~ on my 256 ssd..
Any ideas ?

It is definitely faster on SSD than on HDD. I still install all games to HDD and selected games which are texture heavy or simply put, game that needs high IO brnrfits from SSD.

 

[Durden]

It is definitely faster on SSD than on HDD. I still install all games to HDD and selected games which are texture heavy or simply put, game that needs high IO brnrfits from SSD.

Ok got it , Thank you

 

[mekelek]

That reminds me.. do you think installing games on the ssd gives better performance ?
I noticed that No Man's sky was significantly better on ssd compared to a 7200 rpm hdd.. maybe this applies to open worlds only ! Dunno
I want to get battlefield 1 , And I'm thinking if I should install this "morbidly obese" game ~ >80GB~ on my 256 ssd..
Any ideas ?

Windows and Games all should be on an SSD. nowadays the HDD bottlenecks the whole system.