Advice Request Lightest Free antivirus for lowend laptop

[navidlukas]

Looking for the lightest free antivirus that takes up low memory for a low end laptop. Just looked at the task manager, and saw MS Defender taking up 128MB, and contanctly hogging the cpu and internet because of the sumbit sample function etc....I really dont need all this fancy stuff on a low end laptop.

A bit of googling says Kaspersky free is very low on memory....didnt try it yet. Looking for something small and simple....bitdefender free? Whats your opinion guys...

this also looks usefull

Performance Test April 2021

Performance Test April 2021 for Microsoft Windows 10 security products released, 17 products' impact on system performance was tested

www.av-comparatives.org

 

[ScandinavianFish]

Task manager isnt accurate, you need Process Explorer or Process hacker to reveal the actual memory usage.

Considering its an laptop there is not an single antivirus that will not take up all the resources, especially if it has no SSD.

I would never trust any of these "test" results by these "independent" labs, they arent trustworthy anymore ever since they began testing Potentially Unwanted Programs, with the results being not only highly misleading but also varying way too much to be an accurate source of information.

 

[Minimalist]

For lightest free solution I would choose Panda. After that Kaspersky or BItdefender. Best would be to try them and see how they perform on your system.

 

[Mindaugas]

Eset, K7 or F-Secure?

 

[Pat MacKnife]

Panda Should be light (but protection ???) other Free Avira ...

 

[Shadowra]

Panda Should be light (but protection ???) other Free Avira ...

Panda's protection is bad

In free Antivirus, I would say Microsoft Defender, Avira or Kaspersky / Bitdefender Free
Excellent protections that won't sacrifice your computer's performance!

 

[Anthony Qian]

ESET.

Free AV… You can try Symantec Endpoint Protection, which can be downloaded for free.

 

[Pat MacKnife]

ESET.

The O P asked which Free AV

 

[Trooper]

I will add Avast into the mix as well.

 

[ForgottenSeer 77194]

I don't know if it counts but Wisevector is extremely light and proven effective.

 

[Digmor Crusher]

IMO 128 mb is not a lot, is there even anything lighter than that?

 

[enaph]

Can you tell us more about the laptop specs and use scenarios?

 

[Captain Holly]

Bitdefender Antivirus Free. Of all the free av's I have tried BD Free is by far the least worrisome. It does occasionally send you tips about data leaks and hacked sites and offers you to upgrade to a paid version but those are not very frequent. RAM usage does not really factor in to an AV but BD will use more RAM in the beginning but it will settle down after it learns your system. I like BD because it is a set and forget solution with very strong protection that stays out of my way.

C.H.

 

[ScandinavianFish]

Bitdefender Antivirus Free. Of all the free av's I have tried BD Free is by far the least worrisome. It does occasionally send you tips about data leaks and hacked sites and offers you to upgrade to a paid version but those are not very frequent. RAM usage does not really factor in to an AV but BD will use more RAM in the beginning but it will settle down after it learns your system. I like BD because it is a set and forget solution with very strong protection that stays out of my way.

C.H.

Bitdefender uses 600-700 megabytes of RAM...

 

[RansomwareRemediation]

Bitdefender uses 600-700 megabytes of RAM...

depending or your system, in my, uses 50 -210 - 450 - 520 mb. And depending if Bitdefender detect and incompatibility software.
Greeting.

 

[ScandinavianFish]

depending or your system, in my, uses 50 -210 - 450 - 520 mb. And depending if Bitdefender detect and incompatibility software.
Greeting.

Now try Process Explorer or Process hacker for actually accurate readings.

 

[oldschool]

Bitdefender Antivirus Free. Of all the free av's I have tried BD Free is by far the least worrisome. It does occasionally send you tips about data leaks and hacked sites and offers you to upgrade to a paid version but those are not very frequent. RAM usage does not really factor in to an AV but BD will use more RAM in the beginning but it will settle down after it learns your system. I like BD because it is a set and forget solution with very strong protection that stays out of my way.

C.H.

Users may turn off special offers and "Recommendation notifications" in settings, but otherwise I agree with you. Definitely stays out the way.

 

[pxxb1]

Looking for the lightest free antivirus that takes up low memory for a low end laptop. Just looked at the task manager, and saw MS Defender taking up 128MB, and contanctly hogging the cpu and internet because of the sumbit sample function etc....I really dont need all this fancy stuff on a low end laptop.

A bit of googling says Kaspersky free is very low on memory....didnt try it yet. Looking for something small and simple....bitdefender free? Whats your opinion guys...

this also looks usefull

Performance Test April 2021

Performance Test April 2021 for Microsoft Windows 10 security products released, 17 products' impact on system performance was tested

www.av-comparatives.org

WiseVector StopX. It has a thread here on the fora. Extremely light, extremely potent.

 

[South Park]

Kaspesky Free was the lightest AV I have ever used on my low-end i3 laptop, typically using 60 MB RAM. Conversely, Bitdefender Free was one of the heaviest.

 

[oldschool]

Why antivirus uses so much RAM - And why that is actually a good thing!

Learn why freeing RAM doesn't necessarily speed up your computer. In reality it's often quite the opposite.

blog.emsisoft.com