New
#1
Most effective security suite?
My question is simple - which security suite is most efficient, namely consumes least resources?
It's clear that every anti-virus software, every real-time protection app slows down the computer.
In particular they slow down downloads - every downloaded file get scanned, this is reasonable practice, however, if you download compressed software installers, then this takes a while, and frankly, if I am downloading something from, say, Microsoft, the probability for such a file being infected is very small. At least, this has never happened to me.
They also slow down file transfers - moving and copying files - between hard drives. It takes sometimes a few extra seconds to complete a file move between different hard drives and that's annoying, especially that it's totally clear that the files are not infected - they were scanned many times already on a machine that never had any infection.
In my experience there are three sources of infection that I have ever noticed. First, one can get some trojans from dubious websites, these the anti-virus usually catches. Second, one can download something from "file-sharing" services, or torrents, or usenet, or something like that. These can be bad altogether, or they can contain bad files in a package deal. Third - never happened to me personally - one can get some infection through some removable media, i.e. from friends and colleagues.
Now suppose one does not do any of the above. Only legit sites, only legit, trusted downloads (from CNET and big vendors only, for example). The computer is behind a hardware (NAT firewall. It would seem, that the usual strictest possible protection were a bit excessive. So how does one optimize the protection? Which security suite is the lightest in terms of resource usage? Or can one live without real-time protection altogether?
Quote
