I'm finding that quite a lot of people I know are still using machines with processors over 10 years old, P4's, semperons, One even has a Duron. The problem they are having is that they no longer have enough CPU power to cope with even Microsoft Security Essentials' Real time scanning, it slows down everything they do. If they could afford to buy new machines they probably would but when all they want is browsing and occasional image editing, things the PC's can handle quite well without the Antivirus (or with much older Antivirus programs), I'd rather find a solution that suited them without them having to shell out. Does anybody know which current antivirus programs use the least resources whilst giving decent protection? Edit, not sure why this says Linux, I'm sure I selected Other.
Might try Avast, I use it myself but i do seem to remember switching from this to MSE on some machines to unlock performance. Will give it a try though.
I really find MSE to be the least resource hungry of the bunch. Of course the only thing that uses the least resources is common sense Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk 2
It's balancing the common sense with the feeling of security that people who really don't know enough about their computers or even need to know enough, all they want them to do is work trouble free. MSE unfortunately puts the CPU up to 100% every time they do anything, making it take ages before the program they click on actually starts to launch.
Mse is the least cpu hungry av program i have found. Not going to be a helpful answer but changing the os to linux would solve a lot of issues on slow machines... Hardly had any issues with late mother in law running ubuntu on her nettop. But that was before unity.
Don't know anything about some of these, but you could give any of them a chance: http://www.zimbio.com/AntiVirus+Sof.../8+Free+Light+Weight+Antivirus+Programs+Worth
For old machines ^this is probably the best in the long term. I'd personally vote for Linux Mint (with XFCE), it's very lightweight and a pretty Windows-like UI - easier than Windows even IMO. You can tell them to feel safe because there are no viruses for UNIX (an overstatement, but in reality the chances are so small…). If (GNU plus )Linux is not an option; are you sure that “live” protection is necessary? Can't a scheduled scan every X days do the job?
Best one for that I used was trend micro. Very low on resources Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk 2
MSE is prob already the lowest. The duron system would prob take a much faster XP chip for a couple of quid. That said when old core duo Dells go for about £30 on eBay I have no idea why people put themselves through such misery of using ancient hardware. Durons were pretty turdy ten years ago!
I find common sense to be the least resource intensive I would say MSE is one of the leaner AVs out there but its mainly the RAM footprint that causes trouble on older machine, especially if they only have 256mb. Linux is probably your best bet, but I would say Ubuntu is best for non-techy beginners.
The only setting for real time protection is on or off, But the hit that must have on the CPU must be tiny tbh
You would have thought but even the act of switching realtime protection off locked up the pc for about 5-7 mins
I have a laptop running a pentium m 740, a quick google says started production in may 04. I've used MSE on it, and once did I experience severe CPU usage, 100% usage unable to do anything while it did what it did. Reinstalled MSE, it hasn't done it again. Nod32 used to be very light on resources at least compared to others. Not used it in a while though now so no idea what it's like.
The PC in question is the slowest of the lot but I think it's the software itself. When I disabled it the pagefile started to grow massively so it looks like a memory leak. Might give that a try if Avast is no good.
