Reduce CPU consumtion of Avira Antivirus on Windows?
I'm using Avira AntiVirus on an old Windows XP (home edition) PC. Since they launched the new version last year it consumes a lot of CPU. Are there any settings to reduce that consumtion?
There are multiple instances of Avira running:
Avira.OE.Systray.exe
Avira.OE.ServiceHost.exe
avguad.exe
avgnt.exe2 Answers
The problem with (Realtime) virusscanners is that they're inherently heavy on the CPU, as they have to hash and compare every file you open to a antivirus database. In my experience Avira is one of the lighter scanners, you could try exclude large folders that you deem always safe, but that's very risky on an OS that doesn't have proper privilege separation and allows anyone to write into any directory.
Personally though, on a system that old I'd run Linux to get an up to date OS. Windows XP support has been stopped and using it with internet enabled is very risky, even with a virusscanner.
Most of the antivirus programs are demanding a lot of resources, from my experience. You could try Avast antivirus as a free solution. Generally speaking ESET NOD32 proved to be a reliable antivirus with not so high resource requirements.
The best antivirus is the person that uses the PC: if you're not accessing odd websites, download torrents with cracks, hacks and other similar programs, you'd be just fine with the Malwarebytes scan from time to time
