Norton Internet Security 2011 vs Microsoft Security Essentials?

SheepBeast · 10 Aug 2011 at 22:38

Just wondering which is better in terms of performance? I'm interested in boot up times, memory and CPU usage, etc etc. I know MSE is free and NIS costs £15 but i don't mind paying £15 if it makes a noticeable difference to boot times. Has anyone got a link they can give me comparing the two?

NuclearWinter · 11 Aug 2011 at 00:29

This site is pretty good for performance comparisons:

http://www.raymond.cc/antivirus/

Bane · 11 Aug 2011 at 13:33

Probably only going to get the answers you want by trying a trial of each. And use Bootracer or a watch to find difference.

troops · 12 Aug 2011 at 01:35

Pretty sure nis will defo cause a longer boot time, pretty big resource hog when ive ever seen or used it.

NuclearWinter · 12 Aug 2011 at 03:52

troops said:
Pretty sure nis will defo cause a longer boot time, pretty big resource hog when ive ever seen or used it.

When did you last use it? NIS 2011 is no more a resource hog than all the other antivirus software, and better than average according to benchmarks.

this_is_gav · 12 Aug 2011 at 19:44

NuclearWinter said:
This site is pretty good for performance comparisons:

http://www.raymond.cc/antivirus/

That site also claims that Norton 2011 only uses 10mb under idle, which it... doesn't.

NuclearWinter · 12 Aug 2011 at 20:28

this_is_gav said:
That site also claims that Norton 2011 only uses 10mb under idle, which it... doesn't.

NIS 2011 varies between 7-13mb for me when idle, right now it's using 9.5mb. That's the full security suite and I would expect the antivirus product alone that was benchmarked to be on the lower end of that.

Coolasmoo · 12 Aug 2011 at 21:24

NuclearWinter said:
I would expect the antivirus product alone that was benchmarked to be on the lower end of that.

8,972k here using NAV2011

Raumarik · 12 Aug 2011 at 21:41

Memory usage means little these days, it's CPU time and delay from HDD > RAM etc. I'd rather have it use 200MB RAM and be fast, than 9MB and drag it's heels.

this_is_gav · 12 Aug 2011 at 21:52

NuclearWinter said:
NIS 2011 varies between 7-13mb for me when idle, right now it's using 9.5mb. That's the full security suite and I would expect the antivirus product alone that was benchmarked to be on the lower end of that.

I've just installed the NIS trial.

After 170mb of updates(!), which required a restart (an antivirus update requiring a restart is a new one on me), sitting idle it's using 48mb (Task Manager claims 15mb).

Simply opening the GUI (without actually doing anything else) increases that to 96mb!

Interestingly none of those highlighted processes appear to actually be the antivirus/antimalware real-time service, as disabling them in Norton doesn't free up any further resources (the processes display the same usage), so it appears there's a hidden service somewhere which is doing the actual real-time protection.

Now don't get me wrong, Norton 2011 is a great improvement on some previous versions, and as I've plenty of RAM I'm all for having it used rather than sitting empty, but that test simply isn't accurate/Norton are burying the true usage.

Mythril1976 · 12 Aug 2011 at 23:18

I've been running Norton since year dot. It did go horrible for a few years but a couple of years ago Symantec did a comeplete rewrite of the code from the ground up. It now run fine, does not slow my system down and I have total faith in it. For people who slate it, I suggest you try it again and give it a go. I think you'll be happy with the outcome...

NuclearWinter · 12 Aug 2011 at 23:43

this_is_gav said:
I've just installed the NIS trial.

After 170mb of updates(!), which required a restart (an antivirus update requiring a restart is a new one on me), sitting idle it's using 48mb (Task Manager claims 15mb).

You're comparing two different things though by looking at private bytes in Process Explorer. Private bytes does not show how much physical memory is currently being used by the process, and includes the space allocated in the swap file in case it needs to be swapped out.

The benchmarks on the site were clearly done using the private working set, which is how much non-shared physical memory the process is currently using (and what Win 7 task manager shows by default).

And neither measurement is perfect but as long as the benchmark compared all programmes by the same standard then I don't see how it isn't valid.

this_is_gav · 13 Aug 2011 at 01:00

From your Googling I think you missed the word 'may'.

It can refer to the amount swapped, but not necessarily. Private bytes is the memory (swap or otherwise) which is committed to the process.

Regardless, you missed the key point of the post anyway.

NuclearWinter · 13 Aug 2011 at 02:42

this_is_gav said:
From your Googling I think you missed the word 'may'.

It can refer to the amount swapped, but not necessarily. Private bytes is the memory (swap or otherwise) which is committed to the process.

Regardless, you missed the key point of the post anyway.

The private memory committed to the process, yes. The point is that it includes swap file allocation and doesn't tell you the current physical memory usage. As such it's an entirely different measurement from the ones used in the benchmark. If you were comparing private bytes then MSE (and every other AV tested) would also be far higher than listed too, but that's not what's being compared.

The rest of your post was speculation and I don't know enough about the workings of the software to comment one way or another. Would disabling real time protection change memory usage when idle? I honestly don't know, but it doesn't appear to for MSE either (though the physical memory usage of both programmes bounces around a little while making changes, with no noticeable pattern).