{"id":28284,"date":"2012-02-20T19:32:28","date_gmt":"2012-02-20T19:32:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pcmatic.com\/blog\/?p=28284"},"modified":"2012-02-20T19:32:28","modified_gmt":"2012-02-20T19:32:28","slug":"windows-secrets-newsletter-is-your-free-av-tool-a-resource-pig","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pcmatic.com\/blog\/windows-secrets-newsletter-is-your-free-av-tool-a-resource-pig\/","title":{"rendered":"Windows Secrets Newsletter: Is your free AV tool a \u2018resource pig?\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.pcmatic.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/pig1.jpg\" alt=\"windows secrets\" title=\"pig1\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-28293\" \/><\/p>\n<p>By Fred Langa\/Windows Secrets Newsletter<\/p>\n<p>A reader\u2019s complaint about Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) spurred head-to-head comparison tests of AV-software resource usage.<\/p>\n<p>I put six popular, free antivirus tools through their paces and measured their impact on startup and shutdown times, disk space, and RAM use.<\/p>\n<p>Normally, reader letters appear in the LangaList Plus section of this newsletter. But sometimes, one comes along that warrants treatment in greater detail.<\/p>\n<p>One such letter is this one, from subscriber Bill Garfield:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOccasionally you either recommend or suggest Microsoft Security Essentials as a viable free alternative to commercial anti-malware programs without mentioning the also-free competing products such as AVG and Avast, to name just two.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMSE is an enormous resource pig, adding a full 30 seconds or more to boot times. Many Windows users look to Windows Secrets for tips and tricks to improve performance. Based on my experience, MSE does more to hobble overall system performance on supported platforms than to improve it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPlease stop recommending MSE, or at least include an advisory disclaimer cautioning users that loading MSE has been reported to cause performance to suffer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As the Windows Secrets author who has recommended MSE more than any other contributor, I was alarmed by Bill\u2019s letter. I decided to run a series of head-to-head tests, comparing MSE\u2019s resource usage to other popular, free antivirus tools.<\/p>\n<p>I did not test these tools\u2019 ability to detect malware. With the possible exception of ClamWin \u2014 which is quite new and still evolving \u2014 most third-party tests rank all these tools as acceptable and some of them as excellent. (Valid malware detection-and-removal testing can be done only in specialized labs, and their published results are difficult to compare.)<\/p>\n<p>Because MSE is completely free, I chose to compare it against programs that also are truly free \u2014 no strings (such as free trials of commercial programs) attached.<\/p>\n<p>I chose software that, like MSE, is specifically designed for malware protection \u2014 I didn\u2019t include integrated, do-it-all security suites.<\/p>\n<p>To make the selections, I used popularity ratings from several sources, such as the download stats and user ratings from CNET, MajorGeeks, and other sites. (The rankings and numbers in the list below were current at the time of writing.) I also gave extra weight to products frequently mentioned by readers and other authors in the Windows Secrets newsletter as well as tools that looked especially promising (as you\u2019ll soon see).<\/p>\n<p>I settled on these six antivirus tools:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Microsoft Security Essentials<\/strong> (<a href=\"http:\/\/windows.microsoft.com\/en-US\/windows\/products\/security-essentials\" target=\"_blank\">site<\/a>): Because I\u2019ve recommended Microsoft\u2019s consumer anti-malware application in previous stories, I\u2019ve made it the baseline for these tests.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Avast Free Antivirus<\/strong> (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.avast.com\/free-antivirus-download\" target=\"_blank\">site<\/a>): Avast claims its package is the \u201cworld\u2019s most popular antivirus.\u201d CNET also ranks it #1 on its download list.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Avira Free Antivirus<\/strong> (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.avira.com\/en\/avira-free-antivirus\" target=\"_blank\">site<\/a>): It ranked #2 among CNET users, and it scored an impressive 4.7 out of 5 rating on MajorGeeks.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AVG Technologies\u2019 AVG Anti-Virus Free<\/strong> (<a href=\"http:\/\/free.avg.com\/us-en\/homepage\" target=\"_blank\">site<\/a>): The publisher of this app says it\u2019s used by \u201cover 100 million people.\u201d CNET ranks it at #6 in popularity.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Comodo Antivirus<\/strong> (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.comodo.com\/home\/internet-security\/antivirus.php\" target=\"_blank\">site<\/a>): Comodo gets very high users rating on both MajorGeeks and CNET.<\/p>\n<p><strong>ClamWin Free Antivirus<\/strong> (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.clamwin.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">site<\/a>): Not as well known as the other AV packages, ClamWin is unique; it\u2019s a free, open-source software project released under the Free Software Foundation\u2019s GNU General Public License.<\/p>\n<p>I know there are many other products out there, but I couldn\u2019t test them all. I believe the preceding list is a good sampling.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/windowssecrets.com\/top-story\/is-your-free-av-tool-a-resource-pig\/?utm_source=PCPitstop&#038;utm_medium=email\" target=\"_blank\">Here\u2019s the rest of the story&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n<p>This post is excerpted with permission from Windows Secrets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/techtalk.pcpitstop.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/pig1.jpg\" alt=\"windowssecrets_screen\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" class=\"attachment wp-att-6330 alignleft\" \/><\/p>\n<p>We compare resource usage among six popular, free antivirus applications.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":66012,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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