Recommendations for anti-virus to replace Avast Premier.
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@jamesbeardmore Thanks very much for coming back to give this information
I appreciate the estimate of F-Secure memory usage. It was no big surprise really, and I would suspect most of the big ones would be about the same size, give or take. Many of them are based on the same engine and have basically identical UIs, from what I can tell by screenshots. I do wish they'd stay away from all the fancy faff and focus on doing their job silently in the background, but I guess today's users want big friendly buttons and dancing pigs over simple functional interfaces...
Estimating memory usage is a bit of an arcane art on a modern OS anyway, there are so many factors involved. For instance my AvastSVC process is shown in Task Manager as using 23MB (Working Set), while in Process Explorer it's shown with 123MB (Private Bytes). Depending on how you read those numbers it could be a massive memory hog or pretty lean...
Hard disk usage would be about the same as well, I'm guessing most of that is made up by the malware databases and the aforementioned GUI fluff. Actually my Avast installation folder is a whopping 1.3GB but about 800MB of that is setup files that it (apparently) needs. I really wish developers would show some considerations for those of us who actually still care about how much disk space is wasted... clean up after yourself will ya!
I'm really surprised on the ClamAV numbers though. 1.2GB of memory used seems absurd. Does it really keep all its databases in RAM? It must take ages to load up as well with that footprint. Did you mean to write MB? I've always thought ClamAV would be really light-weight? I've actually considered using ClamAV for its supposedly small footprint.
My dream scenario would be something like F-Secure ca. 2001, but with modern malware databases and detection. Dream on I guess
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@Pathduck said in Recommendations for anti-virus to replace Avast Premier.:
My dream scenario would be something like F-Secure ca. 2001, but with modern malware databases and detection. Dream on I guess
You and me both, my friend. I'd love to see a modern AV that had a simple, no-frills interface... AND more importantly, actually showed what it was doing, rather than just having a meaningless percentage or progress bar.
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As others, off-topic posters also said, I also don't use any AV on my Windows machine for over 3-4 years now and never had any problems. Sooo much better in stability and performance, the OS performs as it was designed to do.
I use a "user account" since the days of NT and previously I would additionally extra-tweak some things in the group/user policies and access permissions to files, since Windows Vista things got better. Similar to @Ayespy I don't use cracked software, I use Libreoffice instead of anything MS, Steam for playing some games, don't download torrents, and don't visit "dubious" sites. For p0rn... just stay mainstream and you are ok If I have some suspicions I run malwarebytes or run it anyway every 3 months or so, but so far everything was clean. Rarely when I have to check some files I upload them to https://www.virustotal.com/ and all is fine :). But it's everyone's decision to believe or not AV companies (that want to sell their products) or take the "risk?"
Similar to @derDay 's link there are lots of threads and comments about it like https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/01/antivirus-is-bad/
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How big a list should I paste of regular trusted big name sites that have been compromised to server drive-by malware to visitors ?
Being careful used to be good enough but this is 2019
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@npro Are you using Windows Defender, or have you been able to completely rid the OS of it? The reason I ask is that the articles I've read often give it the worst score on performance (which is strange since it's basically a part of the OS anyway) and very bad on false positives. And getting completely rid of it on Win10 is not so easy as some would have it.
One reason I've considered ditching Avast is performance, but then I've never considered going without an AV. You'd need to be real careful what you download, and not sure I'd like to have to upload every downloaded executable/document etc to Virus Total. But respect to you I guess, if you are able to do without any AV at all.
I really don't trust running only on-demand scanners like MWB "once in a while" - too easy to get infected by downloading a file and running it, even if it's from a safe source. Like @Dr-Flay says above, download sites are regular targets for (successful) malware attacks.
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@Pathduck said in Recommendations for anti-virus to replace Avast Premier.:
@npro Are you using Windows Defender, or have you been able to completely rid the OS of it? The reason I ask is that the articles I've read often give it the worst score on performance (which is strange since it's basically a part of the OS anyway) and very bad on false positives. And getting completely rid of it on Win10 is not so easy as some would have it.
no, completely rid, full commando
One reason I've considered ditching Avast is performance, but then I've never considered going without an AV. You'd need to be real careful what you download, and not sure I'd like to have to upload every downloaded executable/document etc to Virus Total. But respect to you I guess, if you are able to do without any AV at all.
It's not that dramatic, usually it's about .exe files or installer files and if your sources are trusted/you don't install every trash lying around there is no problem (other than incidents like the hacking of the ccleaner website, which I don't use either), .dll files (infected or not) are called by an .exe so they are not active threats either, and who needs/downloads .scr (screensaver files) anyway, it's all about the use, if I'd use random templates/documents .odt of course I would be a little more careful for macros etc or if I were a software developer having to use .js too, but I'm not
I really don't trust running only on-demand scanners like MWB "once in a while" - too easy to get infected by downloading a file and running it, even if it's from a safe source. Like @Dr-Flay says above, download sites are regular targets for (successful) malware attacks.
yeah ok, no one can be safe 100% but if you "update your software and OS regularly and practice skeptical computing" as the article says and as described in my previous post you are pretty much safe and your OS is solid like it came out of the box today. But again this is a "risk" one decides for himself, can't tell you what to do
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ESET Smart Security Premium has been my choice for years. Since you use Vivaldi you might like ESET because of its also more customizable than other AV. Being a power user I like as many options as possible. One option was logging. ESET isn't perfect logging but its the best I've seen. Even though I've used it for 5 years, I've also used Bit Defender and Norton 360 during that time. I used 360 for 8 years and this is better. Last holiday season I bought Bit Defender because the AV reviews said it caught the most exploits. Maybe, but the software is extremely limited in configuration. Also, ESET has a great infosec website and they're very involved in the community. Check out ESET.
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@brenji Thanks for the input. I've heard good things about ESET, a couple of years ago.
What's the resource usage for the processes, like memory (private bytes/working set) and CPU time? -
@Pathduck Sorry to resurrect an old thread but yes, you read it correctly, 1.2 GB - but that's with a bunch of custom databases in addition to ClamAV's standard databases. If you were to use just ClamAV's own official databses, it'd be much lighter. I made the comparison that way, because it's only with the SecuriteInfo and SaneSecurity databases that I can get a detection-rate approaching that of commercial solutions such as F-Secure. It's also how I use ClamAV, so was easiest to test. I've just checked the size of the official ClamAV databases in /var/lib/clamav and they're currently occupying 268.4MB. I've just tried clamscan with the --official-db-only option, and RAM consuption during a scan of /home appears to be somewhere in the 500-700MB range according to "top".
I too miss the interface of that version of F-Secure, or the interface of McAfee VirusScan 2/3/4, or Dr Solomon's AVTK. Looking at that screenshot, it has all the options you want or need. Crucially, you can set a default option but there's still a "confirm operations" checkbox! It's clear and intuitive, and doesn't waste screen space. Fantastic! It'd be so easy to recreate that and just add an extra checkbox or tab for "Ransomware protection", etc. - without loads of fluff, big fonts, vast white spaces and dumbed-down options for idiots.
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@jamesbeardmore said in Recommendations for anti-virus to replace Avast Premier.:
Sorry to resurrect an old thread but yes, you read it correctly, 1.2 GB - but that's with a bunch of custom databases in addition to ClamAV's standard databases.
Don't worry - the thread is still going far as I'm concerned
I'm not so much worried about memory usage during a scan, since that's something I'm doing rarely anyway. It makes sense that it would load the database into memory when scanning, for speed of lookup.What's more interesting is the memory use during regular background usage, and to a certain extent CPU usage during such background monitoring as well, but it's harder to get data on obviously.
For instance Avast in the background uses ~80MB, and to be honest I doubt I'll be able to find any that uses less.
loads of fluff, big fonts, vast white spaces and dumbed-down options for idiots.
I know, it seems every single AV solution is following the same UI design now, in the end they all look exactly the same... all for the sake of being "user-friendly".
I'm reminded of this quote:
The user's going to pick dancing pigs over security every time
-- Bruce Schneier -
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I put Panda free on many hundreds of laptops, with very good results. Light, user-friendly GUI, seems to be effective. (On maybe 2 units it simply would not work for some reason.)
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@Michael77 Interesting that the list does not contain the 3 free packages that spend most time ranked in the top 5.
It is a list of the average and below average contenders.No Bitdefender, Avira, Kaspersky or Qihoo 360.
Most good AV solutions now come with ransomeware protection, even defender in Win10 has a basic ability to protect your important files.
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If any Interested: https://www.av-comparatives.org/consumer/
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Oh really ?
Yeah Avast/AVG/Piriform are a privacy-invading, data-selling bunch of scumbags.
This is nothing new and one of the reasons this thread is here.
They have been in trouble repeatedly for several years and show no sign of change. -
@Dr-Flay A video explaining how Avast Free Antivirus Sells Your Data to Third Parties
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One of the things I find really annoying is this repeated reminder everyone says about "this is what you get with fee software" which is rather misleading.
The paid version of Avast has the same data collection and options.
This is not a Faustian deal because it is free, but because Avast are greedy.
If their paid for product is good enough they should be making all the money they need.Last time they got in trouble for this, it was because it turned out that opting out did not actually do anything, other than make the user feel happier.
I think the fact that nobody anywhere so far has brought up the point
"Why is it even legal that a company offering security and privacy solutions, can sell your secrets to others which they have no control over?"
It I simply don't understand why this is not seen as a total contradiction. -
Pay attention to the frequency with which the program's virus database is updated, i.e. whether it happens once a week, once a day, etc. The speed of reaction to new viruses that have appeared depends on this. Of course, a fast response antivirus will be much more reliable. It should be noted that this will almost certainly be a widespread, popular antivirus, and not a little-known or recently appeared software product.
A few words about what hardly anyone thought about. How are antivirus databases updated, or how do antivirus developers learn about new viruses? Developers can find a certain number of viruses themselves, walking in all sorts of "hot spots". However, an important role in the detection of new viruses is played by system administrators of various companies and advanced users, who manually detect suspicious files and send them for analysis to virus analysts.
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@LennyWat , This is why in previous Windows I have always used Panda, because it does not use a base in the HD that is updated every x time, but receives the information of new threats in real time in the cloud. It has the disadvantage of relying solely on heuristic detection if you are offline, but I don't see this as a big problem.