AV software with minimum resource usage?

[munky]

Used Norton internet security for 3 years, but got fed up with the long startup times, high memory and CPU usage. A lot of the time it would be fine once the laptop had booted and all startup processes were running, but now and then Norton would hammer the CPU for no apparent reason (not running a scan) leaving the machine unusable for a while.

So, downloaded a trial version of the McAfee 3 in 1 AV/firewall software, a lot quicker to boot up BUT the mcsysmon process constantly uses 15 - 20% of the CPU. CPU is a 2.8Ghz P4 so it's not slow, but IMO 15% baseline CPU usage is unacceptable, the fans are always on and I expect on battery power it's not going to last very long! Not to mention google searches on mcsysmon revealing many users grumbling about McAfee. And get this - they try to rip off us Brits, selling the 3 in 1 software for £40 here, or $40 in the states!! Although I see nothing stopping one from buying it from the US site as download only..

So, what's a decent AV/firewall that doesn't use up masses of resource? Is it to be the AVG/ZoneAlarm combo, that has the added benefit of being free?

thanks muchly..

[GregE240]

Our Tom has a Dell Dimension 3000, 3GHz P4 with H/T, 1GB RAM and an FX5200 graphics card. When I first built it, it flew.

However, I'm convinced that over the course of time, the McAfee software on it has bloated it up to the point where its always trying to download updates, and the database for one thing or another is always corrupting, and so in a fit of pique it disabled the ENTIRE McAfee suite from starting, so you get a big black M in the taskbar area whilst it folds its arms and has a hissy fit. A reboot is the only solution.

McAfee now tell me via mail that its nearly time to upgrade this dreadful software as its time to pay for the annual palm crossing that is subscription renewal. And it ain't cheap.

So bollox to them. I spent an hour on Saturday afternoon uninstalling every last vestige of the bloody stuff, and chucked AVG on. It now runs like a charm and coupled with a bit of juducious graphics card overclocking, is back in rude health. Coupled with Ad-Aware, Tom now has FOC anti virus and spyware.

I've run the same configuration on this laptop for about 4 months now as I got utterly fed up with Symantecs corporate A/V. Nver regretted it for a minute

HTH
Greg

[pdV6]

AVG is great! Free and relatively lightweight.

[Nismo'D]

NOD32 all the way.

[ThePassenger]

AVG & NOD32 are the two to go for. I'd suggest buying a puka AVG package rather than just using the free version, but that's because it's bloody good and worth the £20ish for 2 years.

[agent006]

McAfee's home AV product is shockingly bad. Even more shocking given how good their corporate one is.

[cuneus]

I found that NOD took forever to scan very large files and went back to AVG