Now what - AV hog, thats what?

[LouP]

So I finally get my machine all tuned and FSX was running smoother than any flight simulator I ever had but then today I start getting stutters. I start digging and find that my Avst antivirus software was using more resources than FSX and had twice as many active threads as FSX running. The reason I initially switched to Avast was because of it's low overhead but I think that has changed with this latest release. Seems like every few years I need to switch antivirus programs for this very reason. It feels like the AV programmers think that we run our computers so we can operate antivirus programs :ipepsi2:.

So what antivirus programs are people using these days? I did to much work getting FSX to run well to put up with this. :a1451:

Thanks,

LouP :icon32:

[krazycolin]

I use ESET and swear by it. Inexpensive, unobtrusive and pretty good. They are also one of the few companies that do not see F1's installer as a virus... NICE.

[Walter]

I use McAfee Security Center. It works good for me, but I don't know if it'll work good for you or not. It came from my internet provider.

Walter

[deathfromafar]

One of my friends here recommended Sunbelt Vipre so I bought it and have been extremely pleased. I used McAfee and Avast and found both of them to be resource hogs. My past experience with Sunbelt Software was using CounterSpy to remove Spyware that my other AV programs completely missed. Vipre has been good and is rated as one of the top 10 AV/AS wares according to a few outlets who test such programs. It's a download and annual subscription with daily updates. The resource use is very low and the active scanner is good at catching stuff coming in. So far it has not rang positive on any installers like F1 or anything else related to FSX. The only drawback is that the current online scanner version does cause FSX Flights to not finish loading but my solution was simple, temporarily switching off the active scanner until I finish using the Sim. Turns out many of my AV programs active scanners had caused FS9 and FSX to drag a bit during loadups. I supposed the scanner was checking some files in the sim as it loaded?

[OBIO]

I'm running Microsoft Security Essentials. Free, does a good job of keeping stuff from getting through, and does not take a mouthful of system resources.

I also use Malwarebytes AntiMalware...run daily....as a supplement to MSE.

OBIO

[michael davies]

I'm with OBIO, MS security Essentials, very low systems resources, stops everything, free as well. On top of that I use Zone alarm as a firewall and spybot search and destroy for other pop ups and rubbish, don't use Tea Time though, that does become a pain and runs a lot in the back ground.

Best

Michael

[AndyG43]

I'm with OBIO, MS security Essentials, very low systems resources, stops everything, free as well. On top of that I use Zone alarm as a firewall and spybot search and destroy for other pop ups and rubbish, don't use Tea Time though, that does become a pain and runs a lot in the back ground.

Best

Michael

With Michael on the Zone Alarm & Spybot S & D; I use AVG Free for antivirus, never got on with Avast for some reason & don't like to trust to Microsoft for my protection.

[trisager]

I switched to MSE the last time my annual ESET subscription payment was due. MSE does the job very nicely and unobtrusively.

[langshan]

I use Avast, but I use the option of the gaming mode, seems to work okay for me for them moment.

[Francois]

Avast! on all my machines, for many years! Ever since I got out of the corporate rat race I got rid of all the Norton's, McAfee's, Microsoft's and other memory and attention hogs who are only trying to sell you stuff you don't need.. and put it on your PC without asking ;-)

[Roadburner440]

I swear by Norton. While I have used it (over a decade now) I have never had anything bad happen to my PC. Maybe I am just lucky, but I would like to say it is thanks to Norton. Granted yes it is a resource hog, but in my mind that is a small price to pay.

[whitney17]

I use Vipre Premium. It works well; uses about 12 meg of memory while running on my system and if you want, you can easily shut it down while in FSX, and it'll only leave a 296k memory footprint in the task manager.

Joe

[LouP]

Thanks all, well this is confusing. Hi Francois, I switched to Avast years ago based on your recomendation. It is only since the last update that these issues arose and I never had a problem with it before that. I am not sure if you upgraded or not but if you have, check out your resource monitor the next time you run FSX. My Avast had 78 threads running while FSX had about half that. I would love to know if this new turn of events is specific to me. I went to their forum and saw that others were complaining about this new version being a resource hog but it could be something in the settings that we are not doing correctly. I tried the silent gaming mode as sugested here and that brought the number of threads down to about the same number as FSX but still too many as far as I am concerned.

LouP

[hairyspin]

I swear by Norton.... Granted yes it is a resource hog, but in my mind that is a small price to pay.

I disagree. I've used Norton since 2004 and it got bloatier and slower up to 2008, whereupon it lost a couple of hundred pounds and retreated to the background. I find it fast and unobtrusive plus I too have never had anything slip through. I'm on 2011 now.

Norton and my DSL connection are the only things I pay for on a continuing basis. That says it all for me.

[pilottj]

MS Security Essentials here, has run great with no problems since I have had it. I have an old windows 2k laptop in the office for guests, I find Avast works the best for older computers.

CHeers
TJ

[dharris]

I disagree. I've used Norton since 2004 and it got bloatier and slower up to 2008, whereupon it lost a couple of hundred pounds and retreated to the background. I find it fast and unobtrusive plus I too have never had anything slip through. I'm on 2011 now.

Norton and my DSL connection are the only things I pay for on a continuing basis. That says it all for me.

I would second hairyspin, same story here. Norton in the last two years has improved their footprint on the system immensely. Never had a virus or any other problem and am very active on the net, I buy the three number upgrade and use it on my wife's laptop and an older xp machine. Alot to like about it, and never shut it off, unlike in years past, to free up resources.

[flaminghotsauce]

I don't recommend this, but I don't use any AV software. It's been several years since I quit using it. The only time I ever get into trouble is if I'm off searching for "free" something or other, or "cheats" for some game. I've done that ONCE in the last three years or so, and I did it ONCE with Avast running on Windows 2000 a long time ago. So, twice. Antivirus doesn't stop crap that you invite in.

BUT, I don't mind reinstalling OS's so there's no fear there at all. I don't recommend doing this unless you're comfortable doing this kind of work, and if you don't do online banking on that machine.

IF you have a machine that you do online banking with, ya oughta either run AV software, or run a Live Linux CD. That way you don't have to mess up your Windows installation.