Anti Virus software that consumes the least system resources

[hendra]

Which anti virus software consumes the least system resources and writes the least registry keys?

[invisible]

Some (or most ) might recommend Kaspersky or Avast, I'm an AVG user myself and found it to be the least in resource hogging (don't know about registry keys though).

[Silas Awaketh]

NOD32.

Not sure about the registry keys.

[coolguy]

AVG, Avast, Avira personal edition, AOL activevirusshield (discontinued)

[theZoid]

NOD32 I think.

[3ric87]

I'm currently using Kaspersky and it works pretty fine.

What is NOD32? :P

[zfactor]

nod32 or avira are hands down the av's with the least impact.. ive tried THEM ALL

[theZoid]

I'm currently using Kaspersky and it works pretty fine.

What is NOD32? :P

http://www.eset.com/ Check it out here...it's what I've used for quite some time.

[taelrak]

Nod32 hands down. Not only does it consume the least and takes up the least space, it's also got the best proactive defense and is probably the fastest on-demand scanner available too (consistently for several years).

Kaspersky has made a ton of improvements over its last 2 versions in footprint (anyone remember how bad it was pre version 6?), although it has always been #1 or near the top in terms of known viruses and still probably is. Still, Kaspersky 7 isn't as compact as Nod32 3.0, especially if you turn advanced heuristics way up (Nod32 manages to do this without slowing the system down noticeably and still get better results than Kaspersky ).

For the free ones, Avast, AVG and Antivir (Avira) are all quite lightweight (although none of them compares to Nod32 in terms of efficiency or results). I actually disliked the drain each of these free ones put on my system.

AOL Activevirus shield mentioned above is nothing more than a truncated version of Kaspersky 6.0, and the new Aol antivirus is just mcAfee.

[thnksfrthmmrs]

From my experience I have to say that it's a tie between Avira Antivir and AVG. Avast consumes about 5 MB more RAM than the other two, but that would be a minimal difference that you'll hardly notice these days with 1 or 2 GB of RAM becoming standard. As for the registry keys I would guess that Antivir or AVG would have the least, as they're quick to install and uninstall. Think about Norton!