The antivirus has become an essential tool for any user who connects to the Internet. Thanks to it we can be protected from the increasingly frequent threats that, at any time, can put our security at risk. Thus, we can browse without fear of viruses, Trojans, spyware, ransomware, and other threats. But this peace of mind comes at a price, and that is that, while it is running, the antivirus uses memory and a processor, making the PC run slowly. Therefore, it is important to know which antivirus we should choose.
Almost always, when choosing an antivirus, we tend to look closely at the level of protection it offers us. That is, if it is capable of detecting and blocking threats well, if its database is updated often, and if it uses heuristics and has a database in the cloud. But just as important as security is performance. And it is that it is of little use to be protected if the use of the computer becomes exasperating.
The two slowest antiviruses
According to the exhaustive AV-Comparatives tests , carried out in April of this year, we can see that there are two antiviruses that stand out for making the computer run slower than normal. The first of these, to the surprise of many, is Windows‘ own antivirus . This, which is installed on computers by default, has serious problems with the first runs. In other words, it slows down the PC considerably when we copy files for the first time, since it tends to analyze them one by one, and when installing programs. It also makes the PC go slow while compressing and decompressing files.
More or less the same thing happens with Total Defense , another antivirus that suffers from the same thing as Windows Defender, making the computer slow when compressing, copying files and installing programs.
Install and open programs: the weakest points
To a greater or lesser extent, where antiviruses most often fail are in these two tasks. When installing a program, security software must scan all the files that are part of it to make sure that nothing dangerous is copied. And when opening programs, behavioral analysis features decide whether the software is trustworthy or not. Generally, after opening it for the first time, it goes to a kind of “white list” in which it is no longer analyzed until there is some change.
Malwarebytes, McAfee or Bitdefender are other examples of antivirus that make the computer slow when performing these checks, although not as much as the previous two.
And then, which antivirus has the least impact on PC performance? Well, according to these tests carried out by AV-Comparatives, the two options with the least impact on PC performance, from best to worst, are K7, Panda and ESET . Now, if we want a balance between security and protection, it is better to leave aside K7 and bet on Panda, if we know how to respond to false positives, or ESET if we want to protect the PC and forget about everything else.