AntiVirus | Spyware | Malware

[Guest Space Cowboy]

What solutions are you using, that you find do not affect your KSP performance much?

[Thomas988]

I use Avast. Most of the time it's fine, but every now and then it decides to use almost all of my memory for a few minutes. This is occasional, though, and it's never occured while I was playing KSP, but when it does happen it's really obnoxious and slows down everything.

[sal_vager]

Well, I use Linux, so it's a bit easier to deal with viruses, but I used to use AVG, though I'd alternate between AVG and Avast!, whichever being the least annoying at the time.

One thing to bare in mind, running two anti-virus programs together is a great way to lag your system.

Edited June 17, 2015 by sal_vager

[OddFunction]

The most performance friendly solution is to have a passive, not active detector. For instance I only use ad-aware pro, its free, passive (active is optional) and I have no browser hijacks and no visible negative malware related problems.

I personally think that antivirus gives tons of false positives in order to keep itself relevant, however, so that's why I'm comfortable with passive over active. To each his own though.

[Guest Space Cowboy]

I have been using Webroot on recommendation from the gaming community, however when recording with FRAPS (and monitoring framerate) framerate doubled and more when shutting it off. Just trying to find something with efficient non intrusive code.

[Flymetothemun]

I use Microsoft Security Essentials. I can't tell if it's on or not based on performance, and I have a 1.9 GHz processor. KSP isn't affected at all in my experience, but your mileage may vary. It's also free, which if you're cheap like me, means the world.

But, of course, the best antivirus doesn't take up any system resources. It's called "Smart Browsing". It took me a few years to install but once it's installed it's one of the finest AV's in the world. It also works on any computer you may find yourself at, and if you use it enough, it actually moves with you to all the computers you use.

Edited June 17, 2015 by Flymetothemun

[katateochi]

I run ESET NOD32 and there is no impact on KSP performance. I've been experimenting a lot recently with trying to improve KSP performance and disabling NOD has had zero impact on game performance. It also auto switches into a gaming-mode (pauses any updates or background scans while in a full screen app), but that doesn't apply to me as I generally run KSP windowed.

(It's also kinda good at catching viruses, as in, nothing has got onto any of my win machines since I started using it nearly a decade ago.)

[Starwhip]

Kaspersky, and it has never lagged my system before.

(Unless it has been all this time and I've never realized it. XD)

[CaelumEtAstra]

I personally believe the best antivirus is common sense. But I still have Bitdefender for things I might miss. It's very resource light and doesn't interfere with any programs as far as I can tell. It has an active shield and an auto scanner and is generally very good. For the bigger stuff, though, have Malwarebytes. (I'll admit, I'm a little paranoid with this stuff but hey, I practically live by my siggy.)

Edited June 18, 2015 by Mrsupersonic8
GRAMMAR.

[Fel]

I have not run Anti-Virus for years... I like having an "Web Access Control System" (I would call it a software firewall but Linux decided featureless iptables is a software firewall...) If something I downloaded tries to connect to outside servers (many trojans use this method for bypassing security checks. The file is clean, but it downloads the virus later on.) I block it, if the software works, I don't care. If it doesn't, I check them out and possibly delete what I downloaded.

For windows, "Windows Firewall Control" gives me what I want and seems fairly decent given it is simply extending the already running firewall. For linux, the only thing that isn't half finished, abandoned, or simply disappeared from the net, seems to be SELinux which seems like overkill for what I want out of it.

*I also block everything that tries gathering "impersonal personal data", I don't like how our society accepts putting stuff like that in as "an acceptable norm"

Edited June 18, 2015 by Fel