馃攳
Do Antiviruses Still Slow You Down? (2020) - YouTube
Channel: unknown
[0]
- Antivirus software is notorious
[1]
for slowing down computers
to the point where,
[4]
without even thinking about it,
[6]
it's the first thing that
I remove when I get a
[8]
new system with, you know, McAfee,
[10]
or Norton pre installed on it,
[13]
but while anti malware apps
have grown in sophistication,
[18]
along with the nefarious programs
they're intended to fight,
[21]
modern computers are also
a lot faster than the
[24]
Pentium 166 MHz that I was
running when I formed that habit.
[28]
So then, is running
antivirus in the background
[31]
still like driving around
with the handbrake on?
[35]
Wow, that sounds horrible.
[37]
Horrible, unlike our sponsor.
[40]
Thermal Grizzly!
[41]
Thermal Grizzly's
conductonaut liquid metal
[43]
thermal interface material
offers maximum cooling
[45]
performance for your PC.
[47]
Check it out, and keep your
CPU cool at the link below.
[53]
(upbeat music)
[59]
(music fades out)
[60]
To understand why security software
[62]
would have any effect on system speed,
[63]
we need a little bit of background.
[65]
As I talked about in this
Fast As Possible episode from,
[70]
2014, antivirus and anti malware software,
[74]
are not quite the same thing.
[76]
Antivirus programs primarily focused
[79]
on garden variety bad guys, like viruses,
[81]
worms, trojans, and key loggers.
[83]
And they would run
constantly in the background
[85]
so that nothing could slip through,
[87]
sapping precious system resources
that could have been used
[90]
to render Lara Croft's,
[91]
(clears throat)
[93]
tank top in more detail.
[94]
But because antiviruses
focused more on a specific set
[98]
of known threats, they could
miss some newer malware.
[102]
Kind of like that famous
attention experiment
[104]
with the gorilla.
[105]
That is where anti
malware programs came in.
[108]
They were designed to
do periodic deeper scans
[111]
of the entire system looking
for patterns of behavior,
[113]
or for symptoms that might
indicate an infection,
[117]
rather than a specific
identifiable nefarious program.
[121]
These deep background scans,
[123]
obviously take up some CPU usage,
[125]
and especially in the days
of mechanical hard drives,
[128]
would cause your disc to thrash around,
[131]
reducing system responsiveness
while they were running.
[134]
Making matters worse, most
good anti malware suites,
[137]
included antivirus features,
[139]
like real time threat monitoring,
[141]
and downloaded file scanning,
[143]
so that's like a textbook
triple resource hogging whammy.
[147]
On top of that, as the
types and numbers of malware
[151]
expanded, so did the
databases of known threats,
[154]
so it took more and
more time and resources
[158]
to check through a list
[159]
that was growing longer
than a CVS receipt.
[161]
That is why PCs were slowed down
[163]
by security applications in the past,
[165]
but how bad is it today?
[167]
To find out we ran some
tests, choosing a few common
[170]
security apps, and without protection.
[173]
You know, as a control.
[175]
Our test setup was designed
to be representative of a high
[177]
performance gaming rig,
[179]
but one from a few years ago,
[180]
and we ran it with, and
without Windows security,
[183]
the built in protection that
as far as we know has a fairly
[187]
minimal performance impact.
[188]
We also used two of the most
dread inducing anti malwares
[192]
to ever haunt the prebuilts
and laptops of PC enthusiasts;
[195]
McAfee, and Norton.
[197]
(angry computer noises)
[198]
We focused on mundane everyday activities.
[200]
You know, how long it
takes to download, install,
[202]
and launch an app.
[203]
Unzipping, transferring
files, and booting windows.
[206]
That sort of thing.
[207]
We also ran a handful of more
[208]
enthusiast performance benchmarks,
[211]
and there are actually a few surprising
[213]
findings in our results.
[215]
First up, is that a modern quad-core CPU
[217]
should be enough to handle
basic background scanning.
[220]
Our gaming tests were pretty much a wash,
[222]
and our worst outlier in Cinebench,
[225]
compared to our control was McAfee,
[226]
with only about a three
percent performance difference.
[230]
Here is what blew my mind though.
[232]
Even with a PCI Express and DM SSD,
[236]
workloads that hit both CPU
[238]
and storage were almost
[240]
across the board slower
with anti malware running,
[244]
than without, and both Norton and McAfee
[248]
had measurably higher performance impacts,
[250]
compared to Windows Defender.
[252]
Unzipping a file took 35% longer
[255]
with Norton installed on the system,
[257]
compared to our baseline,
[258]
and launching Adobe Premiere Pro,
[260]
was anywhere from 5 to 30%
slower with Windows Defender,
[264]
and 25 to 35% slower
with McAfee and Norton,
[269]
compared to nothing at all.
[270]
Nothing at all, nothing at all.
[274]
Lttstore.com.
[275]
Granted, in most cases this
equated to just a few seconds,
[278]
but percentage wise it's
just way more than I expected
[282]
to the point where I think
there is still a strong
[285]
justification for the
outrage about system builders
[289]
bundling the software, especially
on entry level machines.
[293]
I mean, even places where I didn't
[295]
expect it to matter at all.
[296]
Like, I would have told
Riley not to bother with a
[299]
file transfer speed test,
[301]
we ended up seeing a shocking impact.
[303]
All of our anti malwares
[304]
were within a few seconds of our control
[307]
when we were transferring
a one gigabyte file
[309]
to a server on our local network.
[311]
But remember, that's a
scenario where the bottleneck
[314]
is our ethernet connection.
[316]
When transferring to a local SSD,
[318]
the difference was eight
seconds with Norton,
[321]
and over 12 seconds with McAfee
running in the background.
[326]
What the actual f-
[327]
(bleep)
[329]
In fairness though, this
is a lot better than things
[332]
used to be, where a scan
would start in the background
[335]
and you would literally go
and make some hot chocolate
[339]
or something while you
wait for a game to fire up.
[341]
So, how have we gotten here?
[344]
Well first off, as I
mentioned, PCs have gotten
[346]
exponentially more capable then
they were when I was a kid,
[349]
and tasks that used to take up a
[351]
significant portion of the CPUs power,
[353]
now take a fraction of a percent.
[356]
Second, remember those big malware
[358]
databases we were talking about?
[359]
Well they used to be
hosted locally, on your PC,
[362]
but now anti malware companies
host them in the cloud,
[365]
where servers can take
some of the processing
[368]
giving your personal computer
some sweet sweet relief.
[370]
Mitigating some more of the
performance sucking effects,
[373]
the first time that we launched an app,
[375]
or downloaded a file, or did whatever,
[378]
it actually took longer
than subsequent tests.
[380]
This makes sense, since once that app,
[383]
or that process has been scanned,
[385]
the security software knows
that it's probably still safe
[387]
the next time that you launch it.
[389]
And it's nice that this
feature worked because
[391]
even if there is a
performance impact initially,
[393]
at least it doesn't carry
on scanning the same thing,
[396]
slowing slowing down every
task, every single time.
[399]
So in conclusion then, we're not saying;
[402]
"Hey, go bareback, it's
great, you're gonna love it"
[406]
protection is important,
especially for people
[409]
who engage in high risk behavior online.
[411]
We're just saying that this video has
[413]
definitely inspired us to
be more cognizant of our
[415]
background tasks,
[416]
because even ones that I have
generally come to accept as
[420]
just part of the package,
like Windows Defender,
[422]
could be a digital boat anchor
on your PCs performance.
[426]
If you want to learn more about this,
[427]
there are entire websites
dedicated to exhaustive
[430]
anti malware testing,
[432]
so if you have a few seconds,
[433]
and those few seconds matter to you,
[436]
we're gonna have some
links in the description
[437]
so you can check out which
ones will let you stay secure,
[440]
and speedy at the same
time, like some kind of
[444]
tortoise-hare hybrid.
[448]
Not sure anybody wants that,
[450]
at least not as much as they
want to hear about our sponsor;
[453]
Private Internet Access.
[455]
What's in your online security toolkit?
[457]
Adding a VPN helps you mask your IP,
[459]
and encrypt traffic to
and from your devices.
[462]
PIA has reliable service
with over 30,000 servers
[466]
in more than 30 countries.
[468]
They have no bandwidth caps,
[469]
and they've got configurable encryption
[471]
with and internet kill switch
that keeps you in control
[474]
of your connection.
[475]
When combined with private browsing,
[477]
PIA can make websites think
you're in a different country,
[480]
with all kinds of benefits
like accessing content
[482]
that would normally be geo-blocked,
[484]
or getting cheaper prices on flights
[486]
when flights are a thing again.
[488]
You can connect up to five devices at once
[490]
with a single account with
clients for Windows, macOS,
[492]
Android, IOS, and Linux, and
they've got a free trial.
[495]
So check them out at the link
in the video description.
[499]
Don't wait, it's great.
[500]
Speaking of great, if
you enjoyed this video,
[502]
maybe check out our-
[504]
hey, we did a bold stuff
that manufacturers say.
[507]
Normally I would say the actual word
[509]
and just bleep it in post,
[510]
but my sons here watching
me record right now so
[512]
that's why I'm not doing that, but we did
[514]
one of those, you know, some
things manufacturers say
[516]
about Windows game mode and
whether it makes a difference.
[518]
I'm gonna link that one down below
Most Recent Videos:
You can go back to the homepage right here: Homepage