AV-Comparatives Performance Tests

This is slightly old news at this point, but an interesting test to highlight. AV-Comparatives has done a, yes, comparative test on how some of the major AV players affect system performance. One of the major complaints about scanning technologies is the fact that they can drag down system performance and hog resources. Hop on over to their website to check out the results in full. The tests compare system performance using the following measures: file copying, archiving/unarchiving, encoding/transcoding, installing/uninstalling applications, launching applications, downloading files and the Worldbench testing suite.

Tested products include:

avast! Free 5.0

AVG Anti-Virus 9.0

Avira AntiVir Premium 9.0

BitDefender Antivirus 2010

eScan Antivirus 10.0

ESET NOD32 Antivirus 4.0

F-Secure Anti-Virus 2010

G DATA Antivirus 2010

Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2010

Kingsoft Antivirus 9 Plus

McAfee VirusScan Plus 2010

Microsoft Security Essentials 1.0

Norman Antivirus & Anti-Spyware 7.30

Sophos Anti-Virus 9.0.1

Symantec Norton AntiVirus 2010

TrustPort Antivirus 2010