Resource usage - Kaspersky Pure vs Bitdefender Total Security

[Reaper1242]

I've been using Kaspersky products for years, and it's always been great, but recently I've noticed that avp.exe spikes my CPU usage to between 75 and 100%, Strangely it happens exactly every 2 hours and for around a minute. I've done the module disable/enable thing. On/off various options. No events run at the same time, and the system is clean.
I'm stumped, and even though I've done a clean install 5 or 6 times that's all they can really suggest. My guess is there's just something that it doesn't like about my rig. Either way I can't pin down the cause.
Under normal usage I don't even notice it. It's just those 2 hourly lags.

So now I'm exploring options. I've compared features and protection of both Pure and Total Security. I read various reviews regarding system performance etc.

I'm interested to hear from people who actually use them what they think. Primarily how heavy they are on resources.

 

[koeksGHT]

MSE..

 

[Reaper1242]

MSE..

How does it compare in terms of protection?

 

[w1z4rd]

How does it compare in terms of protection?

MSE is one of the worst AVs out there.

 

[Reaper1242]

MSE is one of the worst AVs out there.

I've just been reading comparisons and it seems to be pretty terrible. Security is one place I'm happy to pay. My issue really isn't price etc. It's trying to get away from whatever issue is being caused by Kaspersky.

 

[w1z4rd]

Well at the end of the day, no antivirus can protect you from a sophisticated attack. For $50 I can buy a RAT and have it crypted so I can put it through virustotal.com and not get one single hit on it. Add it to a java drive-by and your PC now belongs to me. So with Windows there is no real protection against an organized and sophisticated attack. However that said, 99.999% of the attacks are automated, out dated stuff that you can easily protect yourself from.

The old Bitdefender was crap, but Ive heard they have got better. I dont use Windows so I dont have an Antivirus so cant help you more out there. Just going on what the sales guys are saying.

 

[Reaper1242]

Well at the end of the day, no antivirus can protect you from a sophisticated attack. For $50 I can buy a RAT and have it crypted so I can put it through virustotal.com and not get one single hit on it. Add it to a java drive-by and your PC now belongs to me. So with Windows there is no real protection against an organized and sophisticated attack. However that said, 99.999% of the attacks are automated, out dated stuff that you can easily protect yourself from.

The old Bitdefender was crap, but Ive heard they have got better. I dont use Windows so I dont have an Antivirus so cant help you more out there. Just going on what the sales guys are saying.

Agreed. We're always at risk no matter what we use. Though I'd like to protect myself as well as I can from what I can.

 

[Pada]

I've just been reading comparisons and it seems to be pretty terrible. Security is one place I'm happy to pay. My issue really isn't price etc. It's trying to get away from whatever issue is being caused by Kaspersky.

I've just attended a 4 day hacking course and there the instructor told us that if you can get an exploit past MSE, then it is pretty much guaranteed to get past any other antivirus solution.

The best solution still remains to keep your software & operating system up to date. Next in line is to avoid cracks/warez and porn sites. And then also to avoid Adobe Acrobat Reader and Excel Macro's. Lastly, never doube-click flashdrives that you insert into Windows. Perhaps even go as far as to get an application to disable all the autorun stuff for you.

If you're doing an office security, then run a different/multiple anti-virus on your Email/Proxy server than what you use on your client machines.

Both Kaspersky and BitDefender are great. I just found the default settings of BitDefender very strict. Kaspersky may be pretty intrusive in terms of hooking into the kernel.

I'm using MSE on my machines and I'm quite happy with it. They do however use 100% of 1 CPU core on startup, because then its performing updates, etc.
The only thing that frustrates me is that it takes very long to perform the action that you selected when it detected something fishy.
I also had some issues on an i3 380M, where my videos would stutter for a short while every once in a while due to it. So I just had to add a bunch of exclusions to exclude like VLC and then all my stuttering problems went away.

 

[Reaper1242]

I've just attended a 4 day hacking course and there the instructor told us that if you can get an exploit past MSE, then it is pretty much guaranteed to get past any other antivirus solution.

The best solution still remains to keep your software & operating system up to date. Next in line is to avoid cracks/warez and porn sites. And then also to avoid Adobe Acrobat Reader and Excel Macro's. Lastly, never doube-click flashdrives that you insert into Windows. Perhaps even go as far as to get an application to disable all the autorun stuff for you.

If you're doing an office security, then run a different/multiple anti-virus on your Email/Proxy server than what you use on your client machines.

Both Kaspersky and BitDefender are great. I just found the default settings of BitDefender very strict. Kaspersky may be pretty intrusive in terms of hooking into the kernel.

I'm using MSE on my machines and I'm quite happy with it. They do however use 100% of 1 CPU core on startup, because then its performing updates, etc.
The only thing that frustrates me is that it takes very long to perform the action that you selected when it detected something fishy.
I also had some issues on an i3 380M, where my videos would stutter for a short while every once in a while due to it. So I just had to add a bunch of exclusions to exclude like VLC and then all my stuttering problems went away.

I'm definitely not putting all my trust an any security software. I mainly use it as a safety net. I keep my system constantly updated and I'm very careful where I go and what I download. I haven't seen an infection in years. Maybe I just like the assurance that it's there.

I've gotten used to Kaspersky and after running for a period of time it gets less intrusive. I can't say I like Bitdefender's strictness. I do like to tweak my settings to get them as I like them. I really do like Kaspersky, but having my machine slow to a crawl every 2 hours is insanely frustrating. So far Kaspersky support has been useless.
No events coiincide. Hijack This log is clean. GSI repost seems clean and even deep scanning finds nothing. At this point I just have to believe it really doesn't play well with my hardware config.

I've read that MSE can be a bit on the slow side. I can't pin down what is causing the spikes or I'd exclude that, but it's doing my head in.