Updated: February 20, 2019 Home » Computer and Internet Security » Download Free Antivirus [ Windows / macOS ]
For your information, Norton may not be the faster but it is still one of my favorite. With today’s computing power, processing consumption used by most antiviruses is not an issue. However, if you are on a very old and sluggish system, selecting an antivirus with the least taxing on the system is a must. Below is the complete list of some of the most popular antivirus and its usage on system resources. The table does not include detection rate and features. For those in the dark, some antivirus has a ‘gaming mode’ where it will reduce the resources required when you are playing Dota or Counter Strike.
Related Article 2019 ➤ 10 Lightest Antivirus on Memory Usage During Idle and Scanning
Memory Usage (MB) smaller better | Scan Speed (MB/s) bigger better | |
---|---|---|
Avast Antivirus Pro | 6.6 | 20.0 |
Panda Antivirus Pro | 9.8 | 16.4 |
Norton Antivirus | 9.9 | 36.3 |
BitDefender Antivirus Pro | 15.7 | 35.9 |
Avira AntiVir Premium | 22.9 | 35.7 |
Kaspersky Antivirus | 23.0 | 34.4 |
AVG Antivirus | 29.6 | 32.4 |
Trend Titanium Antivirus | 42.2 | 27.2 |
F-Secure Antivirus | 42.6 | 23.1 |
McAfee Antivirus Plus | 53.2 | 27.9 |
How to Control and Reduce Norton CPU Usage?
Is Your Free AV a System Hog? which antivirus?
High CPU and Memory Usage by ccSvcHst.exe *32?? how? caused by Norton internet security and 360
You can always attempt to use the GetSystemInfo tool and upload the results
Ekrn.exe High CPU Memory Usage
Which antivirus has the lowest CPU and memory usage for optimum security? I mean the one with the right balance?
ESET and AVAST but AVAST so much better!
Reduce CPU Usage
wuauclt.exe memory and CPU usage winlogon.exe
which is the best Performing in term of Speed and Memory Usage Antivirus
How to lower AV peronal memory consumption in windows 8?
Which Free Antivirus Won’t Slow Down My Computer?
What did you use to test it?
This site https://www.raymond.cc/blog/which-free-antivirus-is-the-lightest-on-system-memory-usage/2/ got rather different results. In those Avast seem the natural free choice for not hogging the memory while still being a decent antivirus. And you can turn of the ‘cloud’ in it which I prefer. Don’t like programs going out without me knowing it.
Sorry, my bad. I should have put in the source. It is via https://www.av-comparatives.org/
This article is kind of old.
AvastUI.exe = 28MB
AvastSvc.exe = 41MB
Where are you getting 6mb from?!
Avast uses 6.6 MB ?? Really ?
Are you using a 1966 version, because my current / updated Avast uses close to 500 MB.
See details below. There are 17 different processes launched by Avast.
Image PID Hard Faults/sec Commit (KB) Working Set (KB) Shareable (KB) Private (KB)
AvastBrowser.exe 5992 0 56 136 65 456 21 472 43 984
AvastBrowser.exe 5548 0 45 992 75 064 32 860 42 204
AvastBrowser.exe 2912 0 53 568 63 076 23 272 39 804
AvastBrowser.exe 4024 0 32 244 44 024 21 264 22 760
AvastBrowser.exe 4872 0 27 716 41 184 23 152 18 032
AvastBrowser.exe 6008 0 26 048 36 200 20 128 16 072
AvastBrowser.exe 6044 0 25 940 36 796 21 004 15 792
AvastBrowser.exe 5860 0 16 912 27 172 18 688 8 484
AvastBrowser.exe 3800 0 30 840 19 000 13 080 5 920
AvastBrowser.exe 5368 0 1 804 6 024 4 580 1 444
AvastBrowser.exe 5116 0 1 856 5 508 4 128 1 380
AvastBrowserCrashHandler.exe 3676 0 1 844 1 212 584 628
AvastBrowserCrashHandler64.exe 956 0 1 776 1 108 560 548
AvastNM.exe 312 0 3 492 6 016 3 904 2 112
AvastNM.exe 5344 0 3 484 5 996 3 904 2 092
AvastSvc.exe 1396 3 93 240 43 804 22 644 21 160
AvastUI.exe 3104 0 26 800 39 500 21 816 17 684
Counting Commited RAM = 56136+45992+53568+32244+27716+26048+25940+16912+30840+1804+1856+1844+1776+3492+3484+93240+26800 = TOTAL of 449,7 MB
Anyone knows how to reduce RAM usage please ?
Use Norton, am using Norton. So far so good
This information is not that useful. Memory used to load the program is not memory used while actively scanning or checking for updates. Each of these programs use and free up memory as needed. you can watch them in taskmanager use more memory when their cpu usage goes up. Either way all the programs use a moderate amount of memory even for low end old PCs.
Scan speed is not that important as most of the time it will be scanning on a schedule when the user is not at the keyboard. I try not to run anything while it’s scanning.
More useful would be how much memory and cpu does it eat when I’m at the PC doing my thing or when the computer is at idle. For example my cpu averages 4% /hr idling before I install Anti-Virus and jumps to 21% after protection is installed. I’m looking for something that uses less than 15%
WUT webroot secure anywhere should be first because it use your memory 4.7 mb.
Where’s the processor usage comparison?
When you’re looking for free and light antivirus, just stick with avast.
I have tried ALL of the antivirus out there, and trust me, avast is so much better.
Dr. Web is my second favorite, but it’s not free.
Avast has got very resource hungry lately, I’m now looking for something to replace it
I’m calling bullshit on Avast consuming only a little bit of resource. Avast, much like Norton or McAfee, is a resource hog. The lightest weight AVS is Webroot because its all cloud based.
Which antivirus is not cloud based now? almost none.
i did use avast before, even in silent mode cant get that number. first line of defense, you guys should install ublock origin and just stick with windows defender.
This site must be run by the AV companies. The only AV that uses less than 10MB at idle is Webroot. I’ve tested them all myself. The highest, in 2018 versions at least, are Bitdefender (by far) using 275-325MB; Trend Micro using 140-150MB; McAfee using 100-120MB. Kaspersky and Eset in the 75MB range. AVG/Avast and Norton use the least at idle – under 30MB. These numbers are typically not a huge issue with new systems with 8GB or more of RAM, and RAM used does not necessarily correlate with scanning speed. That said, I don’t use Bitdefender because of the high memory use, among other issues (randomly blocking network printers, uninstall hassles), even as a techie. I’ve stuck with Webroot and Norton for the better part of the past five years. Both have good web threat blocking, anti-phishing and are good performers.