Any Antivirus lighter than Windows Defender?

[rafter109]

no antivirus is better and lighter than using one. If you insist for weird reasons, I would guess Avast's new release might be something that is good  :pc: 

No offense but only a fool would use no AV. No body in their right mind would have promiscuous sex with everyone that they meet because they know that they would pick up a really nasty infection. The same logic applies with computers. I sure hope you don't work IT for any companies that I do business with.

[spaceelf]

I'm very fond of Panda Cloud myself.

[sc302 Veteran]

Windows defender is the new name for Microsoft's antivirus on windows 8.

Windows defender has been built into windows since vista and it was an optional download for windows xp and 2000 Microsoft security essentials was their new security suite and was available for all windows versions except windows 8 because MSE has been renamed to defender. Defender was a useless pos that did near nothing, mse is much better and I can only assume that the one in Windows 8 is on the same level as the older MSE.

That being said, MSE is ok at best and has the smallest footprint on 64 bit systems.

If you want best protection rates use bitdefender or kaspersky, you want light weight stick with defender/mse at least it is something.

[adrynalyne]

I'm very fond of Panda Cloud myself.

I has a machine infected with it once with it and it didn't even detect it.

 

Never used it since.

[francescob]

I has a machine infected with it once with it and it didn't even detect it.

 

Never used it since.

 

Never say no to Panda!

 

[Knife Party]

No offense but only a fool would use no AV. No body in their right mind would have promiscuous sex with everyone that they meet because they know that they would pick up a really nasty infection. The same logic applies with computers. I sure hope you don't work IT for any companies that I do business with.

well i'm not sure what sorta people you have sex with, but I guess ok... if you speak of experience of sexual infection, i won't ask the private details.  I should have said "in my opinion" for "personal use" of no AV. On corporate level, yes its a 'must'.  :huh:

[Copernic Reporter]

Webroot

Avast

Nod 32

[LimeMaster]

 

http://www.raymond.cc/blog/which-free-antivirus-is-the-lightest-on-system-memory-usage/2/

 

Mcafee and AVG .. :rofl:

 

This is why i'll never understand why my competitor always has computers in his window for sale with a spec sheet that says they have 512 megs of ram and he installs AVG on all of them. I'm always thinking WHY GOD WHY!

These stats are not based off the current versions. :/

[Bi4me]

No offense but only a fool would use no AV. No body in their right mind would have promiscuous sex with everyone that they meet because they know that they would pick up a really nasty infection. The same logic applies with computers. I sure hope you don't work IT for any companies that I do business with.

 

An inappropriate analogy I'd say. Most people I know who work in the IT sphere don't use AVs on their home computers. Why? Well they're either not running Windows or just know where not to go. I myself consider removing my active module of my AV as it hasn't caught a virus in the past 5 years and is only eating my RAM. I only see it when I try to edit my hosts file. And most "smart" people have backups so if something bad happens they simply reinstall the OS. So I'd say the opposite - a fool counts on a piece of software to protect himself from his own self. Yet one who is afraid of bears shouldn't go into the woods unprotected too.

[neo1911]

I am using Kaspersky. The latest version released few days ago supports Windows 8.1.

For Indians, Kaspersky Antivirus is available for ?375 ($ 6) or (? 3.8) from sakri.in for 1 year license.

The site also accepts Indian Debit Cards as well as Indian net banking. They deliver box pack with CD to your Indian address. But they also email you the key after 2 working days after processing the payment.

I have been using them since 2 years.

Not sure if it works for international users.

For those in UK can try software4students.co.uk

[Copernic Reporter]

@LimeMaster92

Even if that post is 5 months ago old, Webroot followed by AVAST are still the winners when it comes to memory usage. Yesterday I tried AVAST Free 2014 and last week Webroot 2014 , the results are the same with the test run by Raymond.cc.

[Bi4me]

Webroot

Avast

Nod 32

I don't understand why everybody recommends NOD 32. Except that it has a cool cyborg mascot, I remember it's free version absolutely omitting hundreds of threats and eating a fair deal of my RAM. Then again that was long time ago and maybe it has changed. But looking at the benchmarks tells me that it really hasn't.

[LimeMaster]

@LimeMaster92

Even if that post is 5 months ago old, Webroot followed by AVAST are still the winners when it comes to memory usage. Yesterday I tried AVAST Free 2014 and last week Webroot 2014 , the results are the same with the test run by Raymond.cc.

I think they should retest them all using the current versions even if the results are the similar.

[Copernic Reporter]

I don't understand why everybody recommends NOD 32. Except that it has a cool cyborg mascot, I remember it's free version absolutely omitting hundreds of threats and eating a fair deal of my RAM. Then again that was long time ago and maybe it has changed. But looking at the benchmarks tells me that it really hasn't.

 

NOD32 does not have a FREE version.

[spaceelf]

I has a machine infected with it once with it and it didn't even detect it.

 

Never used it since.

Been several upgrades to it since then I imagine.  I wasn't super impressed with it overall til 2.1

[spaceelf]

I don't understand why everybody recommends NOD 32. Except that it has a cool cyborg mascot, I remember it's free version absolutely omitting hundreds of threats and eating a fair deal of my RAM. Then again that was long time ago and maybe it has changed. But looking at the benchmarks tells me that it really hasn't.

I don't think it was ever as good as people claimed it was, but it used to have a good reputation.

[Bi4me]

NOD32 does not have a FREE version.

I meant trial version, my mistake.

 

 

I don't think it was ever as good as people claimed it was, but it used to have a good reputation.

It still has it, the causes of which still remain unknown to me.

[y2k2r2d2]

I have kaspersky AV expired recently ..so no updates but protects very well and performs scans.  What free AV should i use now? Avast , AVG etc

[adrynalyne]

Been several upgrades to it since then I imagine.  I wasn't super impressed with it overall til 2.1

Yeah this was quite some time ago.

[Riggers]

But surely Copernic you know that memory usage doesn`t tell anywhere near the full strory about how light an AV feels on the system. If an AV caches its sigs to disc then some actions may feel slower than one that is holding them in RAM.

 

Iv`e not tested Avast 2014 yet but 2013 used to slow down some actions quite a bit. You`d see the @ spiining away and the system would slow a bit. Currently giving Qihoo360 a spin and it`s very light on the system. It`s from a Chinese company so that may scare some :omg:

 

Have a decent image with no AV then test a few and see which suits you best...

[ViperAFK]

MSE slows things down pretty badly sometimes too. On every computer I've used MSE on, for some reason at random double clicking (doesn't always happen) an installer will take forever scanning and using cpu it before it opens.

[ViperAFK]

I has a machine infected with it once with it and it didn't even detect it.

 

Never used it since.

To be fair I've seen this happen with pretty much every A/V under the sun, none of them detect anything. Its amazing how many people's computers I've had to clean malware off that had a totally up-to-date A/V on them. I've never used panda though.

[adrynalyne]

To be fair I've seen this happen with pretty much every A/V under the sun, none of them detect anything. Its amazing how many people's computers I've had to clean malware off that had a totally up-to-date A/V on them. I've never used panda though.

Yeah I hear ya.

 

I am a firm believer of keeping yourself safe and keeping an AV just in case.  AV is hardly a way to keep a computer safe, not even combined with anti malware software and a firewall.

 

Too many times I've seen computers full of protection software only to be overrun by baddies.

[goretsky Supervisor]

Hello,

Here are a few independent third-party testers or/certification agencies for anti-malware software, sorted alphabetically:

 

• AV-Comparatives
• AV-Test
• CheckVir
• Dennis Technology Labs
• ICSA Labs
• PC Security Labs
• Virus Bulletin

 

Look through a few years of reports from each organization to find out which products come out top in their respective tests, obtain evaluation copies to test and make sure they work properly in your environment, and purchase a license for the one which works the best. 

 

Regards,

 

Aryeh Goretsky

[monkeylove]

Following results from AV-Test and others, I looked for the free versions of software that did well across the board, especially given the idea that memory use might not always affect performance. I decided to use the free version of Bitdefender after additional features were added.