Avira AntiVIR vs Norton Antivirus 2009 – Performance

Most of the users nowadays love to echo what other people said. Sometime, the things they echoed already not valid in current time frame. For example, Karpersky AV might be one of the greatest AV last 2 years, but their current product (even KAV 2009) fails to make this big K, king of Antivirus hill.

So do with Norton. Since 2003, Norton AntiVirus (NAV) was known as resource hungry security product. It will slow down your Windows, slow down your games, file copy and everything. Prior to 2003, Norton was King of The hill but start from 2004 and upward, this product needs to pass its crown to other product. So, most users nowadays will keep saying, Norton AV is a heavy antivirus, resource hogger and slow. But for those who read my entry early this year, I wrote that NAV2008 was no longer a heavy and resource hogger as they used to be. But still, to beat Nod32 and Avira AntiVIR in term of performance (how bad it will slowdown boot time, slow your running application etc), it was quite an impossible job for NAV 2008.

So my aim today is to compare between Avira AntiVIR SE (Free, but use the very same scan engine as paid version except POP3 scanner, webshield and spyware remover) and Norton AntiVirus 2009 (3 month trial period, you may get it at the bottom of this review : AV scanner, IM, web protect, email pop3 protect etc).

Why do I choose Avira Antivir to be compared with NAV2009? Because Avira AntiVir is my favorite antivirus this year, top scorer in av-comparative.org, light on resource and free. I tested KAV2009 and uninstall it after a week. Too heavy for my liking. I tested RisingAV for 2 months and ditched it when I found my computer infected by a dozen of viruses. (Lucky for me to have a full backup image and at the end of the day, I still use Avira. However, NAV2009 start to make its noise in several computer tech. forum especially on how light it is (compare to previous version of nav and competitor product) and computer resource friendly. I can’t insist the temptation to test it and make a small benchmark between my trusted Avira SE and NAV 2009.

So, what I will do are :

• Boot time measurement: I will measure how long my computer boot, start from the boot loader, until vista show its desktop. Repeat 3 times for both Avira and NAV.
• Measure memory consumption after 12 minutes Vista successfully boot up. The idea is I want to let the OS settle down after the booting process. I decide to let it idle (after boot) for 12 minutes, and take a “task manager -> Performance” screenshot.
• Performance Test using Passmark 6.1 which I run 3 times for each contender.
• As reference, I will measure boot time, idle memory consumption and performance test 6.1 marks when there is no antivirus install in my system. This will give a clear indication how much antivirus does affect my overall PC performance.

 

Result :

 

Â	Avira Antivir SE	NAV 2009	Without Any AV
Boot time 1 (sec)	26.5 sec	26.7 sec	26.1 sec
Boot time 2 (sec)	26.8 sec	26.4 sec	25.83 sec
Boot time 3 (sec)	25.92 sec	26.44 sec	25.3 sec
12 minutes after boot idle memory consumption (MB)	605 MB	609 MB	602 MB
Performance Test 1 (mark)	674.1	680.4	688.0
Performance Test 2 (mark)	686.0	687.5	691.5
Performance Test 3 (mark)	690.4	689.4	691.8

 

 

 

Boot Time (in second, less is better) : Avira AV seem doesn’t toll my system too much during boot time. Averagely around 1 second which is very good. I used to think Avira Antivir slowdown my boot time a lot and these numbers amaze me. NAV 2009 also proves that it only slow down my boot time for averagely 1 second. I don’t expect NAV to perform this good honestly. Due to so many variable involve, I dare to say, NAV09 and Avira Antivir SE perform roughly neck to neck (in term of boot time measurement).

12 Minutes idle total memory usage (less is better) : During 12 minutes idle, I saw several times fluctuation between 607 MB and 609 MB on system with NAV installed. I guess Norton AV 2009 Pulse Update do its work and consume 2 MB more for that short period of purpose. I dare to say, in complete idle situation, system with NAV09 use approximately 607 MB, 2 MB more than Avira AntiVir. Not bad actually provided it protect my IM, web safe, POP3 outlook, anti-spyware where Avira AntiVIR free edition lack of those features. Kinda trade-off.

Performance Test Mark :

NAV2009 beat Avira for first and second attempt of the benchmark. However, Avira able to outperform Norton AV 2009 in third attempt. Norton might has its edge here but the different is not significant.

 

Verdict :

Norton AntiVirus 2009 is one of the lightest and complete antivirus solutions to date. In term of PC performance penalty, it performs as well as Avira AntiVir SE if not better. However, it offer more features than Avira Antivir free (Premium edition has all those bell and whistle too). Impulse Update is a good idea as it keeps update virus definition and white-list very frequently (4 minute interval?). Norton Insight, according to Norton community blog, could reduce scanning speed tremendously. However, NAV2009 is not cheap. Price range (internationally) from USD 20 to USD 30. In Malaysia, NAV 2009 will cost you approximately RM130. So, if money is an object, I rather settle with Avira Antivir SE.

I dearly hope this mini review will clear some of common misunderstanding regarding Norton Anti Virus. Yes, NAV was a resource hogger before, but Norton Dev Team finally able improves their product exponentially. NAV2008 show a very good indication toward system resource friendly principal and NAV09 make a quantum leap for Norton AV product. If NAV2009 is not the lightest AV in the market currently, it is ONE of the LIGHTEST (and protects your PC well) anti virus money could buy today.

 

Screenshot:

No Anti-Virus Installed.

 

 

Avira AntiVirus.

 

Norton Antivirus 2009.

 

 

Effectiveness :

I can’t review how effective they are but I put my trust base on av-comperative.org (an independent lab, that put their effort in testing various kind of AV in the market). According to them (http://www.av-comparatives.org/seiten/ergebnisse_2008_08.php), Avira score 99.6% while Symantec Norton 99.0%. (Kaspersky only manage to get 97.6%, ouch. Even Avast Pro beat big K). I honestly don’t very sure either Norton here (I mean from the link above) is NAV08 or NAV09. But I assume if NAV08 score this well, NAV09 should perform better due to Norton Insight feature. One thing worth to note is, NAV has few false positive but Avira, according to av-comperative has many. False positive is a situation where antivirus report legit and normal files as virus. Once they quarantine or delete this file, what will happen to your computer is unthinkable. A scanner with high false positive might lead to higher detection rate but it is kind of cheating for antivirus developer. Ideally, an antivirus should has 100% detection rate with ZERO false positive. So, practically, we as the users are looking for highest detection rate with very few false positive.

 

Download Link :

Norton Antivirus 2009 (3 months trial) :
HERE

Avira AntiVIR (free) : HERE

AV comparative on-demand report : HERE

PassMark Antivirus Performance performance report : HERE

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