Avira AntiVIR vs Norton Antivirus 2009 – Performance Posted: November 27, 2008 in Tags: , ,
Most of the users nowadays love to echo what other people said. Sometime, the things they echoed already not valid in current time frame. For example, Karpersky AV might be one of the greatest AV last 2 years, but their current product (even KAV 2009) fails to make this big K, king of Antivirus hill. So do with Norton. Since 2003, Norton AntiVirus (NAV) was known as resource hungry security product. It will slow down your Windows, slow down your games, file copy and everything. Prior to 2003, Norton was King of The hill but start from 2004 and upward, this product needs to pass its crown to other product. So, most users nowadays will keep saying, Norton AV is a heavy antivirus, resource hogger and slow. But for those who read my entry early this year, I wrote that NAV2008 was no longer a heavy and resource hogger as they used to be. But still, to beat Nod32 and Avira AntiVIR in term of performance (how bad it will slowdown boot time, slow your running application etc), it was quite animpossible job for NAV 2008. So my aim today is to compare between Avira AntiVIR SE (Free, but use the very same scan engine as paid version except POP3 scanner, webshield and spyware remover) and Norton AntiVirus 2009 (3 month trial period, you may get it at the bottom of this review : AV scanner, IM, web protect, email pop3 protect etc). Why do I choose Avira Antivir to be compared with NAV2009? Because Avira AntiVir is my favorite antivirus this year, top scorer in av-comparative.org, light on resource and free. I tested KAV2009 and uninstall it after a week. Too heavy for my liking. I tested RisingAV for 2 months and ditched it when I found my computer infected by a dozen of viruses. (Lucky for me to have a full backup image and at the end of the day, I still use Avira. However, NAV2009 start to make its noise in several computer tech. forum especially on how light it is (compare to previous version of nav and competitor product) and computer resource friendly. I can’t insist thetemptation to test it and make a small benchmark between my trusted Avira SE and NAV 2009. So, what I will do are : Boot time measurement: I will measure how long my computer boot, start from the boot loader, until vista show its desktop. Repeat 3 times for both Avira and NAV. Measure memory consumption after 12 minutes Vista successfully boot up. The idea is I want to let the OS settle down after the booting process. I decide to let it idle (after boot) for 12 minutes, and take a “task manager -> Performance” screenshot. Performance Test using Passmark 6.1 which I run 3 times for each contender. As reference, I will measure boot time, idle memory consumption and performance test 6.1 marks when there is no antivirus install in my system. This will give a clear indication how much antivirus does affect my overall PC performance. Result : Avira Antivir SE NAV 2009 Without Any AV Boot time 1 (sec) 26.5 sec 26.7 sec 26.1 sec Boot time 2 (sec) 26.8 sec 26.4 sec 25.83 sec Boot time 3(sec) 25.92 sec 26.44 sec 25.3 sec 12 minutes after boot idle memory consumption (MB) 605 MB 609 MB 602 MB Performance Test 1 (mark) 674.1 680.4 688.0 Performance Test 2 (mark) 686.0 687.5 691.5 Performance Test 3 (mark) 690.4 689.4 691.8 Boot Time (in second, less is better) : Avira AV seem doesn’t toll my system too much during boot time. Averagely around 1 second which is very good. I used to think Avira Antivir slowdown my boot time a lot and these numbers amaze me. NAV 2009 also proves that it only slow down my boot time for averagely 1 second. I don’t expect NAV to perform this good honestly. Due to so many variable involve, I dare to say, NAV09 and Avira Antivir SE perform roughly neck to neck (in term of boot time measurement). 12 Minutes idle total memory usage (less is better) : During 12 minutes idle, I saw several times fluctuation between 607 MB and 609 MB on system with NAV installed. I guess Norton AV 2009 Pulse Update do its work and consume 2 MB more for thatshort period of purpose. I dare to say, in complete idle situation, system with NAV09 use approximately 607 MB, 2 MB more than Avira AntiVir. Not bad actually provided it protect my IM, web safe, POP3 outlook, anti-spyware where Avira AntiVIR free edition lack of those features. Kinda trade-off. Performance Test Mark : NAV2009 beat Avira for first and second attempt of the benchmark. However, Avira able to outperform Norton AV 2009 in third attempt. Norton might has its edge here but the different is not significant. Verdict : Norton AntiVirus 2009 is one of the lightest and complete antivirus solutions to date. In term of PC performance penalty, it performs as well as Avira AntiVir SE if not better. However, it offer more features than Avira Antivir free (Premium edition has all those bell and whistle too). Impulse Update is a good idea as it keeps update virus definition and white-list very frequently (4 minute interval?). Norton Insight, according to Norton community blog, couldreduce scanning speed tremendously. However, NAV2009 is not cheap. Price range (internationally) from USD 20 to USD 30. In Malaysia, NAV 2009 will cost you approximately RM130. So, if money is an object, I rather settle with Avira Antivir SE. I dearly hope this mini review will clear some of common misunderstanding regarding Norton Anti Virus. Yes, NAV was a resource hogger before, but Norton Dev Team finally able improves their product exponentially. NAV2008 show a very good indication toward system resource friendly principal and NAV09 make a quantum leap for Norton AV product. If NAV2009 is not the lightest AV in the market currently, it is ONE of the LIGHTEST (and protects your PC well) anti virus money could buy today. Screenshot: No Anti-Virus Installed. Avira AntiVirus. Norton Antivirus 2009. Effectiveness : I can’t review how effective they are but I put my trust base on av-comperative.org (an independent lab, that put their effort in testing various kind of AV inthe market). According to them (), Avira score 99.6% while Symantec Norton 99.0%. (Kaspersky only manage to get 97.6%, ouch. Even Avast Pro beat big K). I honestly don’t very sure either Norton here (I mean from the link above) is NAV08 or NAV09. But I assume if NAV08 score this well, NAV09 should perform better due to Norton Insight feature. One thing worth to note is, NAV has few false positive but Avira, according to av-comperative has many. False positive is a situation where antivirus report legit and normal files as virus. Once they quarantine or delete this file, what will happen to your computer is unthinkable. A scanner with high false positive might lead to higher detection rate but it is kind of cheating for antivirus developer. Ideally, an antivirus should has 100% detection rate with ZERO false positive. So, practically, we as the users are looking for highest detection rate with very few false positive. Download Link : Norton Antivirus 2009 (3 months trial) : Avira
probably are not recognized trust by NAV Insight yet. But anyway this is not big deal ’cause smaller whitelists only decrease time required to complete manual scan, as you sad. expertester says: Addendum: Your second, third and n’th scan speed will be INCREASE tremendously compare to first scan. —- The bigger the whitelist %, the faster complete scan can be completed. Victor says: Expertester, You mentioned “…Your second, third and n’th scan speed will be INCREASE tremendously compare to first scan” What do you mean? Do You want to say that NAV 2009 increase scan speed the more one ask for manual and full scans? Victor says: Guys, Av-Comparatives homepage published an antivirus comparative performance test which measures the impact of different antivirus softwares on system performance. Avira Antivir and Norton Antivirus 2009 are included. Here is the link to download the pdf file: Dated: October, 2008 says: Nice work Expertester, I just don’t understand why didn’t you try to comparethe Avira AntiVir Premium trial version vs NAV 09 trial version. Comparing free AV with paid one is a little not too right, don’t you think? The free AV will most probably perform better but with lack on extra protections like WEB, POP3, Spyware etc. In your tests NAV 09 performs like you set ‘neck to neck’ in most cases with AntiVir Free, but Avira Premium version puts 3 more system processes to cover all the WEB, POP3, Spyware etc. which will take extra boot time, extra memory consumption and a little different performance test, right? I am currently using Avira AntiVir Premium one year subscription on my Desktop and NAV 2009 Gaming Edition 3 months trial period on my Laptop and I love them both: Avira AntiVir Premium has much more false positives! Norton Antivirus 2009 Gaming Edition once failed to detect a Trojan people say in some forums! But I am impressed by the effort that you make to do the tests, Thank you. expertester says: @Baltata, Yeah, my bad. Perhaps, when I did performthe test, I was using Avira Antivir Free edition and so tempted to test NAV09 and evaluate it performance since so many security expert in wildersecurity forum praise NAV09 performance. Perhaps, I will do the NAV09 vs Avira Premium revisit (currently use both too ) Victor says: I’ve been using Avira Antivir Premium for some days and I can say it’s not light on resources like Norton Anvirus 2009. I tested NAV before. On the other hand, Avira Antivir Premium is much more superior than Norton on detecting Malwares specially Trojans. I’m saying this based on a recent test performed by Virus Bulletin () – February, 2009. The test measures products’ detection rates across four distinct sets of malware samples. detais here: I think detection capability is more important than performance when one has to decide what antivirus to use. What do you think? Victor Hugo says: Expertester, In your opinion, does norton antivirus gaming edition have less performance impact over the system than theregular Norton Antivirus 2009? Tech0utsider sad Gaming Edition adds less than 1 second to boot time and further minimizes impact. What do you think? Thanks in advance for your attention on reply! says: […] Avast sale un poco mejor parado que Avira 8… incluso el Norton est por encima. Tambi n en esta mini-comparativa de rendimiento entre Avira Personal y Norton AV 2009, ste ltimo obtiene mejores resultados […] ViGunZ says: I Think AVIRA is the best, Norton Internet Security Worst make my PC Freeze, i used 2007-2008 version, and now i used Bitdefender Total Security. cowgaR says: I’ve used couple of antiviruses, and Norton 2010 is my favorite nowadays. note: Norton AV2009 is rewritten from scratch (2010 is using upgraded codebase), so it is completely something else than a disasterous 2007-2008 releases VinGunZ above is talking about. Norton Insight is also a good feature that Avira lacks (with prefetch service on Avira tends to check like 2 thousand files and computer didn’t evenstarted😉� , the only other AV that uses something like that is (now horrible resource hog) Kaspersky, but Norton isn’t using NTFS streams as “checksum store”, but a database instead (so your filesystem is intact, do you hear me Kaspersky?!?)… way to go P.S. as to detection rate, it is completely irrellevant if you get 98,5% (avira) or 98%, unless you get 100%, you’ll better hit with unknown files. Having firewall set up also helps, so a little lack in detection isn’t worrying me, I am Avira -> Norton switcher. expertester says: Yes, I am completely agree with you on this one. As for my personal experience too, NAV or NIS2010 is the best AV (or even IS) for me to date. Very light on resource (you can feel it immediately). I barely notice that my system is actually protected by a Norton 2010 where I still able to notice performance degradation with Avira Classic. I just played with KAV2010 (honestly, I have 6 months license on my hand for this product) and I could immediately feel myfresh install win7 (installed on Acer Aspire 4930 notebook) perform significantly slower and boot time increase several seconds. I even dare to advice my female friends (the Aspire 4930 owner), if she want to renew her Kaspersky license, better fork out that amount of money for NIS or NAV2010. Worth every single cent. Latest virus test from AV comparative also show that Kaspersky already lag behind pretty badly (94% currently, if my memory serve me well). Those who say Norton 2010 (or even 2009 actually) is a resource hogger and will cause users’ PC slow down, I can’t help but laugh silently. Pity them who become a parrot. Well… what can I say…most of so call computer literate users love to echo some old news. For those who feel offended with this statement, don’t take my word. You don’t need to. But download Norton 2010 trial (15 days or 3 months if you are smart, I already show how to do that in this blog…err..another page), test it and make you own conclusion. You will thanksyourself after that says: Great stuff since reading your postI was remindedabout same issues in Anton says: Thanks for a very good review of these AV. Actually I’m from Russia, so I can compare Kaspersky “from inside”. It is very popular in Russia and almost the majority of companies are using it for business purposes. I’ve been familiar with this AV since version 6. It used to work fast and good but, then I’ve noticed that new changes were not for the best. An attempt to make the AV perform as security suite significantly slowed the process on my PC. Then some false detects have happened. Finally I’ve got a very hostile virus called “Sality… bla-bla-bla”. It was a real big problem to eliminate it and it was very time demanding. Since then I do not trust Kaspersky in my security protection. Tests show that it is not the best for a long time, so I’m surprised that it is so popular. Its popularity abroad Russia I cannot explain at all. I know huge amounts of AV better and they all areaccessible. Such a strange love for a Russian soft Besides, I happened to use Norton while studying at my Uni. First of all it was just Ok, but then update files became too big and the whole system slowed down. I do not use Norton since 2000 but I believe it might become better. I just don’t want give it the second chance. Some years before I occasionally get info on Avira (version for home use) on one of IT forums. It was German made and as I’m a fan of German engineering, I decided to try it. I’m still using it with no problems at all. Just as a matter of interest I tried commercial version and even security suit. Perhaps, it’s better but I disliked it because of lots of options which I do not need at all. So Avira Free – my personal choice for a good antivirus. But complete protection needs not an AV only – a good firewall is needed also. I was seeking a good one as for the AV before – it took months to test different products. Ironically the best of them (Comodo) was foundaccidentally and costs nothing. Sometimes it just happens – you get excellent products for free. Besides, according to the tests which I read about half a year ago Avira Comodo Firewall tandem beats Kaspersky Suite. I was happy to hear it. So for now I’m completely satisfied with my security software. For years of work I have not got any of virus problems on any of my PCs. Besides they all are connected to Internet which I use about 8-10 hours a day and my file server downloads information 24 x 7. Tons of viruses are reported and cured automatically and I have no need to care about problems with AV or hacker attack. I can strongly recommend Avira as a good AV. PS. Despite of the written above I’d like to note that your own security is a matter of your own. So don’t just trust any reviews but try different soft to understand which fits you the best. 100% security does not exist (end even will not be ever created) but it’s possibly to get an acceptable security level. Sometimes evenfor free.😉� says: great post, really informative i know where to go if i need more info says: precisso baixar oantivirus says: Thanks for this post and for showing the performance of Norton which I think is real from its smallest feature to the most comprehensive ones. Irma Tran says: not bad paul says: I think that this review is useful but unfair. Avira should be a paid version. You will notice Avira always has less false positives And as for hogging ram, Norton has improved and so has our PC’s ability to hold more ram. I want to say that a paid version of Avira IS NOT CHEAP either. The Avira SE is annoying with pop up to upgrade (understandable) and does not do as well at protecting your computer compared to the paid versions of Avira and Norton; we all are aware of free AV’s. All in all I chose Norton due to the saving over Avira. I don’t mind which one of the two I got. To me it was costs and I saved the most with Norton for 3 Pc’s for 2 years. Get either one, you’ll be alright!!says: And what about Norton and Kaspersky comparison? Lots of folks are choosing between those two applications and I think might be of help to them too. albert says: you guys confuse me a lot!my NAV was expired and i need to install new AV,now i’m using avira antivir personal(free) i am not sure if it will protect my laptop the way NAV do.I was satisfied with my NAV,can i re install NAV it?though i have to try avira first,please say something about my concerns(anyone) Vishal says: You must have compared with ealier version of AVIRA.. Compare with new AVIRA FREE ANTIVIRUS (and not AVIRA SE) , it beats not only Norton but any damn antivirus on the earth … Probably all other companies will take next few years to bring competitive product to AVIRA FREE ANTIVIRUS. hameed says: u people have made me mad.u people have wrote alottttsssssss paragraphs but u people do not write simple answer that which on is the best anti virus of the year. i want one answer that which one is the best Norton orAvira anti virus? says: There is a polysilicon glut as well, lowering the price of Seo Content Architecture panels will meet your needs, determine how much shade covers your own home and property. Let the potatoes cook for four hours of continuous sunlight. The promise of free energy is an excellent selection for you to charge the onboard house batteries. 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I was using KIS 2009 that was making Firefox goes very slow…. […]
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