Recommended Anti-Virus Software for SP3 as related to battery performance

[spasell]

I was using the installed Windows Defender but felt that it was using too much CPU and therefore, battery was adversely affected. I switched to bitdefender but not sure it made much of a difference.

Does anyone have any recommended AV sotware for SP3 that they feel is better and doesn't impact battery life? There were processes that were always running with Windows Defender and someone told me it related to Defender but not sure.

Coming from Mac never worried about it but want to make sure I'm getting good protection without sacrificing battery and performance.

Thanks

 

[Marquis de Faux]

Windows Defender is one of the lightest, so you probably won't get much better.

 

[ITMedCEO]

Avast is not bad...yet I have the i7 SP3...hard to tell if it slows me down.

 

[anon(7901790)]

I've had a SP3 since it came out. I've not noticed whether Defender causes any extra battery drain. Keep in mind, there are several processes running in the background on a Windows machine. So unless you have actual empirical data showing how much battery a certain app uses I wouldn't worry about it. Defender is built into the OS, so you are better served both protection and performance to use it versus a third party.

Also, what eats up battery is first, the screen, that requires the most power, the CPU is a non-linear power user. It all depends on what it is doing. I checked my task manager (Ctrl+Alt+Del) and it shows Defender using 0% of the processor at the time. Unless you are continuously running AV scans, Defender sips CPU time, which means not a lot of power usage.

 

[CliveSinclair]

Had ESET beofre moving to Macs in 2007 - no issues. Moved back to Windows last year and tried all the latest AV packages. Settled on ESET Smart Security - no slowdowns and no visible impact on battery life (i7 256gb).

 

[maflynn]

I have Avast on my MBP running windows, I was planning on transferring the license from there to the new SP3. The protections it offers is well worth the potential battery impact. Being on a MBP running windows, my battery performance on the laptop is horrible, it doesn't really have the power savings available, i.e., running on the dGPU etc

 

[GoodThings2Life]

I've never run anything more than Security Essentials/Windows Defender. Enable SmartScreen and Enhanced Protection in IE (Advanced tab, in Security section near bottom), and install the tracking protection lists from EasyList and you have the best protection needed for free without hogging your system resources. Not to mention a majority of site ads are blocked too.

 

[Ruined]

Eset smart security