Conclusion: A Pleasant Surprise
As mentioned on the first page, I came into this story idea aware that I had a prejudiced expectation. Although I’d never actually tested it for myself, I was under the impression that the presence of a resident virus scanner would have an adverse effect on system performance.
I’m very happy to report that my preconceptions have no place in today’s PC world, as even single-core processors are able to demonstrate comparable performance with or without modern security software installed. This is true not only for basic virus scanners, but also for comprehensive security suites.
Having said that, it’s also true that the presence of security software isn’t undetectable in all circumstances. We do see an increase in application launch times with a virus scanner installed, but the only significant wait time is a couple seconds added on the first launch of a program. Subsequent launches appear to be cached, and the wait time is almost imperceptible.
The only benchmark that shows a notable performance decrease with a virus scanner installed is PCMark’s productivity suite. Even here the performance hit is only notable with two of the 10 tested security products, and in this case, an increase in Windows Contacts search times is the main cause. While I can’t speak for everyone I know, I do not spend a significant amount of time searching Windows Contacts, so for me this isn’t much of an issue.
While these results are encouraging, a couple of questions need to be answered. As we mentioned at the beginning, we’ve limited our testing to performance with the virus scanner installed. However, what is the performance hit during an actual virus scan? This is something we hope to examine in a follow-up review in the near future.
However, for the time being, we’ve learned that a user can confidently install a virus scanner or Internet security suite without being too concerned about performance consequences. It appears that typical tasks we undertake when using our PCs will not be notably slowed by the security software on which we rely. In the end, I’m pleased to admit that my expectation of a decrease in general PC performance when a virus scanner is installed was incorrect and obsolete.
Related Stories :
- Kaspersky Adding 'Safe Money' To Security, Anti-Virus Apps
- Google: Anti-virus Software Needs To Shape Up
- Windows Explore's A Virus, Says Kaspersky's Anti-virus Software
- Panda Software launches "ultra-light" anti-virus software
- McAfee anti-virus update flags hundreds of innocent files as virus
- Anti-virus companies gear up for mobile phone viruses
- Google Brings Anti-Virus Scanning to Gmail
- Do Virus Scanners Slow Down Your System?
- Kaspersky Discovers Stealth Virus "Red October"
- Microsoft Warns That Flame Virus Exploits Windows Flaw
Great article, thanks!
before i read the article, my guess is Norton is the slowest and most useless....
How can u forget Avira , it's so popular & so good .
I guess the new ones are lighter than the earlier ones for some of them....
well from my point of view - antivirus scanner do application loading to take a much longer time and this was proven by your tests.
I think that AV software has no place into todays operating systems except for inexperincied users. I'm investing money to fast SSD disc to improve performace, why the hell intstall AV software to push performance back?
This is the kind of article that keeps me coming back to Tom's! Kudos!
Avast please?
talk about heavy modifications on the new set of AVs compared to the older ones ... my surprise is norton which i was expecting to cripple the system to a halt .... very nice article btw
The test rig's CPU looks funny to me.
Athlon II X4 645
3.5 GHz, Quad-Core, 6 MB L3 Cache
Isn't that a Phenom?
@Fip - Because when dirty viruses do their job, you'll get a headache.
before i read the article, my guess is Norton is the slowest and most useless....
well i am really surprised
@tony singh
yes - for inexperienced user. I have no problem with viruses over 8 years. OS Patches, working under different than admin account, not using IE, and not executing every garbage downloaded from internet. And finally virtustotal page for testing for viruses if you realy need it.
well i am really surprised
I get Norton Security Suite free with Comcast. I was kind of bummed when I found out that's all they have available, but so far its been good to me. I haven't noticed any adverse effects, maybe startup is s little slower.
this is tested on a fresh install - the average system has a ~2 year old install and fragmentation and lower end hdd's, combind with a crapload of other software trying to startup - no really a real world benchmark.
it would have been useful to see a difference in the benchmarks using different HDDs like the 5400 RPM laptop ones, 7200 RPM and SSDs, that would have made a difference
Fip is right, cmon, it's not so easy to get a virus installed in your computer. Only real concern is about pendrive virus, otherwise, it's real hard get a virus actually, so just deactivate autorun and you're done.
If you still think a Anti-virus is useful, look to the logs of your anti-virus, how much viruses have you executed? How much of these you wouldn't figured out even without any anti-virus? A computer virus it's not something invisible who will eat your computer's guts, it's just a program, and need to you to execute him at least one time.
We aren't in 1996 with blaster or melissa. Tom's is supposed to be a site for tech guys, cmon, you aren't supposed to be a facebook brainless guy who don't know the difference betweek "naked gurls.exe" and "naked gurls.jpg".
Well the biggest slowdown you will experience with antivirus software is when you open a folder full of exe files and explorer tries to show all the icons of the executables. There is a very noticeable slowdown in that case.
Also i would have liked a startup benchmark, because the antivirus also slowdowns somewhat the startup process.
I think Microsoft Security Essentials should be included if possible and there is a situation that I think it is greatly affected by anti-virus software: Windows start-up.
well i am really surprised
Norton has VASTLY improved compared to what it used to be. I use Norton 360, and I have to say that it has been a great product.