Serious Discussion which antivirus should i those

Snowwolfboi

New Member
Thread author
May 21, 2021
5
Hi Guys i am concern about, because i am gamer and want a very good protecting antivirus that is lightweight, dosent slowdown my pc while i am gaming on it, so do you guys have any idea which antivirus i should pick and use as my daily drive antivirus on my gaming pc
 

CyberDevil

Level 8
Verified
Well-known
Apr 4, 2021
360
Hi Guys i am concern about, because i am gamer and want a very good protecting antivirus that is lightweight, dosent slowdown my pc while i am gaming on it, so do you guys have any idea which antivirus i should pick and use as my daily drive antivirus on my gaming pc

Norton For Gamers is very lightweight and in rare cases can even improve gaming performance with its built-in CPU optimiser.
There's extra functionality like VPN (extremely mediocre and almost universally blocked), identity leak monitoring (including game nick theft), document backup, password manager (who needs it when you have bitwarden), auto-updater for popular software.

Eset Internet Security (or Smart but its too expensive) has no extra features, just a very lightweight antivirus that never gets in the way of gaming, it also barely reacts to various cracks and mods, if that matters.

For me, these two are the best choices for a gamer.
 

Shadowra

Level 36
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Sep 2, 2021
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Is there any reasons to use one over the other, and vice-versa? And how will OP know which one they should use first?

Oops, I forgot to specify, I'll add here.

ESET: Very light antivirus, excellent detection rate, excellent protection against PUPs (one of the few to block them).
It doesn't have VPN or other features (you can have more options like safes in Smart Security, but it's very expensive).

F-Secure: Antivirus also very light, excellent detection rate too. On the other hand, it's all-in-one (Internet Security has a relatively good VPN, while Total adds a password manager, and you can use Bitwarden, which is free). F-Secure is bad on PUPs.

All in all, these are 2 good, lightweight antivirus products. The choice will depend on whether you want a program that will protect you (and if you don't need a VPN) or whether you want a suite that includes everything (antivirus, password manager, VPN, etc.).
 

Trident

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Feb 7, 2023
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I would echo @CyberDevil with Norton for Gamers (or even Norton 360).
It’s quiet (you can select what notifications you want: all, informational + critical, only critical or none).
It is very low on resources, releases RAM not needed anymore quite quick and is highly optimised for speed. CPU usage is always minimal except on full scan.
The backup, password managers and VPN may be useful to some users and the gamers edition includes the Bullguard Gaming Optimiser (the only thing Bullguard was famous for). Under some circumstances it may boost your game a tad bit.
 

Miyagi

Level 1
Verified
Jul 7, 2013
37
Have tried literally all the major AVs and highly recommend Norton 360. PC temperature is always lower and system feels snappy. Norton 360 has been solid for my home network. Overall good value (includes VPN, password, parental controls, etc). Try both and see what feels best on your system.
 

brambedkar59

Level 31
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Apr 16, 2017
2,097
Never really found any difference in FPS while gaming with different AVs. Where I notice the lag most is file explorer, app launch and web browsing. Most of the AVs have "gaming mode" (or something similarly named) which won't show notifications while running fullscreen apps. "AV for gamers" now that's just marketing term. If you have enough RAM installed (>=16 GB) you should be fine with any well known AV.
That being said my picks would be: Kaspersky, Bitdefender, F-secure, Eset & MS Defender.

Edit: Forgot app launch.
 
Last edited:

Sorrento

Level 12
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Dec 7, 2021
558
My fave ones are Emsisoft simple & now much lighter, also F-Secure & ESET in no particular order - None drains system resources away without reason & have a degree of privacy - I like Norton but I don't use it as frankly I don't trust it - If I was looking for privacy above all Emsisoft.
 

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