Anti Virus Testing

[OilKiller]

Originally Posted by KootenayFlamesFan

So, a little CP advice:

Kaspresky vs/ Avast

Who wins?

Going to do some more testing on Saturday. Tough to say...it's close so far.

But, with that being said, I was running Avast and now I'm running Kaspersky...

I am interested to see if Kaspersky can keep a good record going this weekend.

[FanIn80]

I wish someone would do a resource usage and overall annoyance test with all the AV apps out there. (Not directed at you, OilKiller... I'm just making a general point.)

[stang]

Haha it wont even let me run Malware bytes

ANd I cant find the recovery CD

[Shazam]

Originally Posted by OilKiller

Yeah, ClamWin a waste of time IMO. Avast didn't do that great this time. No one AV can always do well it would appear. Kaspersky, yes, very good.

Edit: My bad, but I think this was a fair assumption. After looking at the ClamWin site, they state: Please note that ClamWin Free Antivirus does not include an on-access real-time scanner. You need to manually scan a file in order to detect a virus or spyware. What type of AV software doesn't have realtime protection????

ClamWin is meant mostly for server-side applications that need virus scanning functionality - e.g. web sites that let people upload stuff. You use ClamWin to scan the file. Most AV programs don't have any sort of public API.

[OilKiller]

Going to do some more testing tonight. I also have tomorrow off so I will do some more then as well, but I'm going to try to get to as many tests tonight as possible.

[psicodude]

Great thread OilKiller.

I am just wondering if it would be easy for you to post some footprint benchmarks as well. Cpu and ram consumption are really the only things I care about.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by psicodude

Great thread OilKiller.

I am just wondering if it would be easy for you to post some footprint benchmarks as well. Cpu and ram consumption are really the only things I care about.

So you would rather have antivirus that doesn't work at all but took little system resources?

I can write that program in about 20 seconds.

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{

printf ("Virus Protection is active!\n");

return 0;
}

edit: I am pretty sure that syntax is right, although someone will probably correct me if it is not.

Seriously, if it matters that much, don't run antivirus.

[psicodude]

Originally Posted by Rathji

So you would rather have antivirus that doesn't work at all but took little system resources?

I can write that program in about 20 seconds.

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{

printf ("Virus Protection is active!\n");

return 0;
}

edit: I am pretty sure that syntax is right, although someone will probably correct me if it is not.

Seriously, if it matters that much, don't run antivirus.

Wow, dude. Please point out where I said that the footprint outweighs protection? I just asked if he wouldn't mind posting the amount of ram each of these use up while he was running the tests.

Historically, the big knock against any of these programs is how much they slowed down your computer. I am very familiar with how much resources the big name players use up and was curious to see if the free ones were any better.

Not everyone on the planet has 4 GB of memory and a core i7. The millions of people using netbooks, for example, might care about this information.

[Hack&Lube]

Avast is taking up 40MB of memory

[OilKiller]

More testing done last night with some of the same AV's to see if they keep performing along at the same pace, as well as some new ones that I had requests for. I used 15 brand new malware links. Most were links to .exe files including fake AV's, other rogues, and other various types of malware. All AV's were installed, allowed to update and set to the default settings. The only AV that anything was changed on was A-Squared, as it appeared by default, a couple of the shields were off for some reason, so they were turned on.

After each test, Malwarebytes was ran and updated and a fast scan was done. The results for each fast scan after each test are listed along with the tested AV. In some cases, files that were 'infected' were simply left behind files in the temporary folder. This doesn't seem like a big deal to me, but it may be to some. I personally use CC Cleaner all the time to clean temp folders out, so those files would be gone. Not sure why some of the AV's didn't simply delete those files, but they seem pretty harmless sitting in a temp folder and not running in memory or anything.

One of the surprises for me again was Avast. Caught everything and the only thing left behind was a registry key. Also, the new Trend Micro Titanium Beta. It stopped everything in it's tracks. I will say though the beta seems a little heavy to me. About 45MB of RAM and I did notice a bit of system slowdown, but it works very, very well for a beta, so maybe the drag on the system is worth it or maybe it's just because it's a beta. Kaspersky still did very well in reporting every single link, but three items were left behind in the temp folder. Again, not a big deal to me personally, as they would be deleted soon anyway and were not running in memory. It was the same with Vipre, which performed VERY well and only left behind three files in the temp folder.

I don't mean to offend anyone but BluePoint Security is not good. It did nothing. Their sell line is Revolutionizing Computer Security. If by that they mean, allowing every system to get completely infected, well, they have achieved their goal. Not sure what has happened to Nod32 as well. It didn't perform very well at all. Now, onto the results:

A-Squared Beta 5

Links Missed: 2/15
Memory Processes Infected: 0
Memory Modules Infected: 0
Registry Keys Infected: 2
Registry Values Infected: 3
Registry Data Items Infected: 0
Folders Infected: 5
Files Infected: 19

Avast

Links Missed: 1/15
Memory Processes Infected: 0
Memory Modules Infected: 0
Registry Keys Infected: 0
Registry Values Infected: 1
Registry Data Items Infected: 0
Folders Infected: 0
Files Infected: 0

BluePoint Security

Links Missed: 15/15
Memory Processes Infected: 4
Memory Modules Infected: 1
Registry Keys Infected: 2
Registry Values Infected: 7
Registry Data Items Infected: 5
Folders Infected: 5
Files Infected: 29

Dr. Web

Links Missed: 2/15
Memory Processes Infected: 1
Memory Modules Infected: 0
Registry Keys Infected: 2
Registry Values Infected: 4
Registry Data Items Infected: 2
Folders Infected: 5
Files Infected: 18

F-PROT

Links Missed: 7/15
Memory Processes Infected: 2
Memory Modules Infected: 0
Registry Keys Infected: 1
Registry Values Infected: 4
Registry Data Items Infected: 5
Folders Infected: 3
Files Infected: 19

Kaspersky

Links Missed: 0/15
Memory Processes Infected: 0
Memory Modules Infected: 0
Registry Keys Infected: 0
Registry Values Infected: 0
Registry Data Items Infected: 0
Folders Infected: 0
Files Infected: 3

Microsoft Security Essentials

Links Missed: 2/15
Memory Processes Infected: 0
Memory Modules Infected: 0
Registry Keys Infected: 1
Registry Values Infected: 3
Registry Data Items Infected: 3
Folders Infected: 3
Files Infected: 15

ESET Nod32

Links Missed: 8/15
Memory Processes Infected: 2
Memory Modules Infected: 0
Registry Keys Infected: 2
Registry Values Infected: 4
Registry Data Items Infected: 5
Folders Infected: 5
Files Infected: 25

Trend Micro Titanium Beta

Links Missed: 0/15
Memory Processes Infected: 0
Memory Modules Infected: 0
Registry Keys Infected: 0
Registry Values Infected: 0
Registry Data Items Infected: 0
Folders Infected: 0
Files Infected: 0

Vipre

Links Missed: 1/15
Memory Processes Infected: 0
Memory Modules Infected: 0
Registry Keys Infected: 0
Registry Values Infected: 0
Registry Data Items Infected: 0
Folders Infected: 0
Files Infected: 3

Please keep in mind, I'm no pro and these are just small tests. All AV's could perform badly when only given some 15 links. These tests are just simple tests to see how each AV performs under these conditions.

[KootenayFlamesFan]

Avast and Kaspersky continue to do well in pretty much every test you do. Bit of a trend there, for sure.

I've never used CC Cleaner.........sounds like a nice tool. How often do you run it?

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by psicodude

Cpu and ram consumption are really the only things I care about.

Originally Posted by psicodude

Wow, dude. Please point out where I said that the footprint outweighs protection?

Install the ones that don't catch anything just because it uses low system resources and you might as well just run my program.

If you didn't mean what you said, then what i said is obviously pointless, and i take it back. You wouldn't be the first person I came across who thought like that. Some assume that just because a program says anti-virus on it, that it will catch whatever is out there, so they only consider the system hit. Since this is clearly a faulty line of thinking, I thought I would point it out.

I didn't mean to stir anything up. I do understand very much that resource use is an important part of any software choice, but your phrasing led me to think that you were putting way to much emphasis on it.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by KootenayFlamesFan

I've never used CC Cleaner.........sounds like a nice tool. How often do you run it?

I run ccleaner at least every couple weeks or after I do a batch of installs/uninstalls. I love it, probably the tool I run the most, outside of Treesize Free.

[dobbles]

my interpretation of psi's statement was that he wanted performance benchmarks, and that ram and processor usage were the only benchmarks he was interested in. maybe i am the one that misunderstood, but its pretty silly to me what you guys are saying.

[OilKiller]

Originally Posted by KootenayFlamesFan

I've never used CC Cleaner.........sounds like a nice tool. How often do you run it?

It's free and an excellent tool. I run it every couple of days.

It's here.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by dobbles

my interpretation of psi's statement was that he wanted performance benchmarks, and that ram and processor usage were the only benchmarks he was interested in. maybe i am the one that misunderstood, but its pretty silly to me what you guys are saying.

In retrospect, that was clearly what he was saying.

[OilKiller]

Originally Posted by psicodude

Great thread OilKiller.

I am just wondering if it would be easy for you to post some footprint benchmarks as well. Cpu and ram consumption are really the only things I care about.

Sorry I didn't see this earlier. Most of the AV's are taking up less than 50MB of RAM. I have found MSE and Avast to be very light. Someone stated 40MB of RAM for Avast...Hmmm, I've never seen it that high.

My running Kaspersky right now it taking about 19MB of RAM.

I did notice that the Trend Micro Titanium Beta that I tested in the last test was running pretty heavy, although they have stated they are going to address that before the official release.

Was there one you were specifically interested in?

[psicodude]

Originally Posted by Rathji

In retrospect, that was clearly what he was saying.

Don't sweat it Rathji. I understand where you were coming from, and you are right. Security > performance any day of the week.

The reason I was asking is that I am the technical lead on a project that requires us to deploy 300+ laptops in a school environment. The project also allows students to bring their own device from home, so we are kicking around the idea of creating a "hostile" network that only provides internet access, and no access to any internal resources (which includes our corporate Trend Officescan servers). As a result, I am tasked with finding an AV solution - either put a server into a DMZ (not ideal) or find a product that will use the cloud.

So, to make a long story short, I really just wanted to know if the resources used by the free solutions were similar to what the big boys are.

[psicodude]

Originally Posted by OilKiller

Sorry I didn't see this earlier. Most of the AV's are taking up less than 50MB of RAM. I have found MSE and Avast to be very light. Someone stated 40MB of RAM for Avast...Hmmm, I've never seen it that high.

My running Kaspersky right now it taking about 19MB of RAM.

I did notice that the Trend Micro Titanium Beta that I tested in the last test was running pretty heavy, although they have stated they are going to address that before the official release.

Was there one you were specifically interested in?

Avast and Kapersky seem to be the best of class, so both of those would be great.

I have actually loaded Avast a couple of days ago for testing and my findings mirror what you are saying. 10mb of ram and only a touch of cpu used, which is really good.

Have you experienced any spikes of anything while testing?

I seriously do appreciate this thread and the effort you are putting into it.

[OilKiller]

Originally Posted by psicodude

Have you experienced any spikes of anything while testing?

No real spikes that I have found. Kaspersky a bit when scanning, but I usually schedule scanning for when I'm not using the system, so it doesn't bother me.

Both are pretty light overall IMO. Avast is excellent software for free and Kaspersky IMO is the best in paid AV's out there.