Question Lightest AV

Please provide comments and solutions that are helpful to the author of this topic.

cartaphilus

Level 11
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Mar 17, 2023
503
Hello everyone,
i'm currently looking for the lightest AV on the market the only real performance tests i could find are on AV-comparatives, using it for gaming and working from home and want it to be as light as possible :) wonder what your experiences are, currently using Kaspersky, but also got licenses for Norton/BD.
Cheers!
I vote Eset Premium and F-Secure. Neither of them slowed my PC a noticable amount and it's a gaming system. I vote for Eset since I can use their keystroke encryptor without running any additional software.

Checkpoint Harmony whilst correctly setup and the rules deployed is actually really freaking light when the program is running! So ok the execution takes an extra second or two but after it executes the actual slowdown on the application is not noticable. BUT checkpoint Harmony is very chatty in a gaming environment so I would only recommend it for an individual that knows what they are doing and what to do if a possible false positive pops an alert. For example I know that the bob.msi I just downloaded from the Microsoft server is 95% certain to be a false positive popup. Whilst jdfh384757282jdfbsj.exe from limewire us most likely a positive identification of an unknown strain of STD.

I just went against my own personality and decided to test Kaspersky again. Mainly due to system watcher since it is indeed excellent. Personally on my own system I have noticed a ~11% drop in frames when running the Dark Knight and the Harry Potter game benchmark. I think both of them are unreal engines.
 
Last edited:

gonzalo

Level 2
Verified
May 20, 2014
98
For a laptop, i wonder if its better to just stay with defender than installing another one...
 

Ink

Administrator
Verified
Jan 8, 2011
22,490
Hello everyone,
i'm currently looking for the lightest AV on the market the only real performance tests i could find are on AV-comparatives, using it for gaming and working from home and want it to be as light as possible :) wonder what your experiences are, currently using Kaspersky, but also got licenses for Norton/BD.
Cheers!
What are your hardware specs? Are you limited by CPU/RAM/slow SSD?
 

monkeylove

Level 12
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Mar 9, 2014
598
I tried Novabench 5 free version to test a new Win 11 Pro machine (i5 13400F, RTX 4060, 16 GB RAM, M.2 storage) excluding the GPU and got the following scores (the higher the better):

Kaspersky Free Antivirus - 2494

(I uninstalled it completely because I felt that the system was sluggish, but before that I decided to install and use Novabench first).

Windows Security with Core Isolation activated - 2467

(It's a custom-built machine, so I had to find out how to activate the TPM and secure boot.)

Windows Security with Core Isolation, Security Processor, and Secure Boot activated - 2218

Based on feel, initially it felt like the system was faster, although I think the browser (Firefox) loaded faster but some apps that loaded lots of files not as much.
 

Nevi

Level 12
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Apr 7, 2016
566
My vote goes to ESET NOD 32 antivirus, especially if you're under a router. If not the Internet security with firewall is probably better. That and a standard account should keep you protected. If you feel vulnerable, you can add OSArmor ». This should keep you under an umbrella. Just dont click on anything unknown, especially in mails.
I use NOD 32, because it's good, and so light I don't feel it. Microsofts Defender is definitely better than for 5-10 years ago, but I think it's a little heavy to dance with sometimes.
F- Secure should be pretty good too.
 

R19933

Level 1
Thread author
Aug 31, 2023
32
I tried Novabench 5 free version to test a new Win 11 Pro machine (i5 13400F, RTX 4060, 16 GB RAM, M.2 storage) excluding the GPU and got the following scores (the higher the better):

Kaspersky Free Antivirus - 2494

(I uninstalled it completely because I felt that the system was sluggish, but before that I decided to install and use Novabench first).

Windows Security with Core Isolation activated - 2467

(It's a custom-built machine, so I had to find out how to activate the TPM and secure boot.)

Windows Security with Core Isolation, Security Processor, and Secure Boot activated - 2218

Based on feel, initially it felt like the system was faster, although I think the browser (Firefox) loaded faster but some apps that loaded lots of files not as much.
Honestly i just got a new Dell XPS and kept MS Defender installed as it came preinstalled. It runs great, will monitor the upcoming days but really seems good so far.
How's your experience?
 

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