Why Antivirus uses so much RAM?

[Ink]

People's paranoia after reading "what's the most lightweight antivirus?", causes them to run around like headless chickens. Only when you have no RAM left, then you have to be concerned.

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

Posted a couple years ago, by Emsisoft.

 

[vtqhtr413]

Good explanation, thanks for posting.

 

[LDogg]

This article makes a lot of sense. Very informative.

~LDogg

 

[Weebarra]

Quite interesting and taught me a few things too. For people like me who don't really understand things very well, i like these type of posts (whether i actually remember them though, is something entirely different)

 

[cruelsister]

Those that complain about RAM usage of security products apparently never ever look at what their browser use is.

 

[SumTingWong]

500MB - 1GB of RAM usage for antivirus is a big no for me. DDR4 ain't cheap. Bitdefender IS 2019 uses 400MB+ and it still performs sluggish, so the conclusion for me is more RAM usage doesn't mean better performance at all. 32GB RAM is barely enough for professional workload. I will not support this case if they are okay for their software to use this huge amount of RAM because RAM is cheap ( Not in the case of DDR4 mate), and they are too lazy to optimize their software for better RAM usage, so they have to make an excuse " High RAM usage is better for antivirus."

 

[bribon77]

Those that complain about RAM usage of security products apparently never ever look at what their browser use is.

If you're right, browsers use a lot of RAM, but if you have an AV that also consumes a lot of RAM.
The PC will walk like a turtle.

 

[SumTingWong]

If you're right, browsers use a lot of RAM, but if you have an AV that also consumes a lot of RAM.
The PC will walk like a turtle.

I support this. Some PC turn from tiger blazing fast speed into sluggish turtle after installing Bitdefender antivirus.

 

[ForgottenSeer 69673]

Edge only uses 425 meg of RAM with two tabs open.

 

[Vasudev]

500MB - 1GB of RAM usage for antivirus is a big no for me. DDR4 ain't cheap. Bitdefender IS 2019 uses 400MB+ and it still performs sluggish, so the conclusion for me is more RAM usage doesn't mean better performance at all. 32GB RAM is barely enough for professional workload. I will not support this case if they are okay for their software to use this huge amount of RAM because RAM is cheap ( Not in the case of DDR4 mate), and they are too lazy to optimize their software for better RAM usage, so they have to make an excuse " High RAM usage is better for antivirus."

DDR4 RAM is very expensive. I think that lag/stutter occur when an AV uses more CPU cycles for every R/W of a service/apps.

 

[bribon77]

I support this. Some PC turn from tiger blazing fast speed into sluggish turtle after installing Bitdefender antivirus.

I remember that once I participated in a forum. And in that moment a new av was commented. With many engines, if I remember correctly, I used 5 engines. It was GDATA. It wasn't a bad AV, but it used a lot of resources. And there was a forero who said. I can because I have a powerful machine. And answered a great forero who was there, and said Instala Gdata and stop having a powerful machine.

 

[uduoix]

Well if you have PC only for browsing then is no problem is AV use 400+mb rof ram. I had slowdowns in games when i was using emsisoft and bitdefender but i don't have that issue now with ESET and kaspersky on laptop.
Start with modeling and rendering and you will see how amazing it is when AV don't give a s*it about your ram usage and keep slowing everything down.
What we read in blog this is how it should work, but when reality check in is totally different story.

 

[TairikuOkami]

People looking for a lightweight AV are not looking just at RAM, but also at CPU/HDD usage.
Mostly because they do not have a choice, like a laptop/tablet with 2GB RAM and a slow CPU.

 

[stefansalvatore]

Malawartips is a helping hand to me. Thanks :emoji_v:

 

[dinosaur07]

Very interesting the idea of hiding the RAM load into the drivers. Ingenious. I never thought on that and i think it happens. Good hint given by EMSI. I feel good being their customer.