I thought I saw someone post that AVAST 4 is a very efficient AV application utilizing minimal system resources. However, on my PC (WinXP Pro) it shows about 38M of memory is taken up by AVAST. Is this correct/expected/required?
Thanks,
dagger
Is this correct/expected/required?Not really ;) See this thread - you will find the answer there: http://www.avast.com/forum/index.php?board=2;action=display;threadid=37;start=0
My machine has 396mb of memory. Using TaskInfo 2003 after start up of Win98 I’m showing approx. 15 mb for avast and avast email scanner for about a total 30mb. Memory usage is very elastic. Shortly after performing various tasks these Avast memory amounts reduce drastically to about 12mb. In other words, depending on amount of total memory and virtual memory settings in Win98 will determine how much and for how long Avast as well as other programs utilize memory. In even more other words, don’t worry about it because Avast isn’t a resource hog.
Pavel - thanks for the reply. Sorry I missed that earlier thread.
However, 12M is still a very large amount or RAM compared to other apps. One of the reasons I don’t use Norton was due to its size as well as instability back when I was running Win98se.
On my work PC (Win2000) we use a full Norton plus custom VDU updator. Totalling the VM Size values of all 5 of these resident running Norton apps, it totals to 9.928M
Any word on a future version of AVAST being “leaner”?
Thanks again,
dagger
PS - It’s working very well. My wife called me this morning saying she was scared when she launched Outlook Express and a siren went off as we received (another) virus email. How do I disable the siren so as to keep the domestic peace?
Any word on a future version of AVAST being "leaner"?I still do not think avast is [i]memory hungry[/i]. Todays AV solution with current number of viruses and email/on access protection can hardly fit into 1 MB ;)
How do I disable the siren so as to keep the domestic peace?;D ;D This is quite simple - go to the menu and choose Settings, Sounds and check the item [i]Disable avast! sounds[/i]... But you will lose one of the finest avast features :D !!
Pavel - I know, the sounds were some developers pride and joy, but I got the message from the wife :o
Got to give you guys a challenge - not asking for 1Meg, but I bet you could do it all in under 10Meg???
Many thanks again for a great AV app and for ALWIL’s excellent customer support through this forum.
Cheers,
dagger
The thing is, we changed our scanning algorithm (from v3) so that it uses much more memory (we construct an in-memory tree of the size of approx. 7.5MB) but is considerably faster.
This decision has been made in the early stage of the project, with a proposition that it really is not that much, and that today’s computers are equipped with tons of RAM, anyway.
I don’t thing this will change in the next version… 
Vlk
I agree. RAM is cheap and easy to install if more is needed. 128mb just doesn’t cut it anymore today.
I agree with the statement that RAM is cheap and easy to install, but that needs to be qualified. For us computer literates, it’s a piece of cake to install. But sometimes we are blinded to what goes on outside our hobbies. My Mom’s computer was running 32M until I got my hands on it last summer. Now its got 128M. She didn’t even have any AV before that so at least she was running AVG, but you can imagine if she still had 32M (and shared with graphics!) and we wanted to load AVAST 4. As well, I’ve “only” got 512M, and that’s because I build my own PC’s and wanted very fast memory without bleading too much - so I got TwinMos PC3200. Even still, look at the price of Corsair PC3700 - that’s not cheap, but PC2100 is (hey - I’ve got a stick of Crucial PC1600 if anyone wants to make me an offer 
).
The point of all this is I assert the vast majority of computer users do not have state of the art configurations and I would be surprised if the AVERAGE amount of RAM in deployed PC’s is greater than 128M and is likely closer to 64M. As well, I also assert that a large percentage of PC users, even recent college grads are uncomfortable opening up desktops or laptops and installing more RAM (I reference my niece who just graduated last week). Just a reality check.
dagger
Note kindly taken 
nod32 needs 2mb to work,…
maybe u could make avast more light
I still use my Celeron 300 MHz , 64 MB Ram machine that I bought 3 years ago… (After adding another 64 MB Ram chip, Avast4 still “heavy” to my pc) :-
I think to use Avast4 I have to buy a P4 2+ with at least 256 MB RAM :‘( :’(
I think to use Avast4 I have to buy a P4 2+ with at least 256 MB RAM :‘( :’(
well, I think you are over reacting on this one…a PIV needed to run Avast4 ?
I have a PIII 1 Ghz with 384MB Ram under XP, and I have NO problems at all. No slowdown, no crashes…
A PIII is not a “state of the art” processor anymore (pc is 2 years old) but Avast (with all providers running) runs like a sport car.
I also have “Zone Alarm Pro 4.0” and “Anti trojan 5.5 guard” running resident (ALL the time).
and also this little program to free up RAM ( cyber lat ram cleaner) www.cyberlatino.com.mx
Waldo
All this whining about the memory requirements of the program is ridiculous.
Sometimes I really marvel at those who feel that 12-17mb approx is too much to use for the excellent protection that Avast offers.
For the record…
I use Avast 4 Home in my W98 machine with a mere 64mb and it works fine.
I use Avast Pro in my WinXP with 128mb and it works the same.
If your using too much memory, then maybe you should look at some of your other programs!
My Mother always said that you can’t put a 10 lb ham in a pan that only fits 5!
Avast rules!!!
This thread is really getting silly.
;D
AVG uses 450KB. Thats not a typo. Very lean. But not as pretty as Avast!
Gary
AVG uses 450KB.
LOL
Could you tell me where exactly did you get this information?
FYI, the scanning engine of AVG is located in a kernel driver. Hence most of its memory allocations are done from the driver, and don’t show up in things like Task Manager etc…
We can discuss this in more detail, if you wish, but I’m getting increasingly tired hearing that avast is a memory hog. I just don’t think so.
Vlk
Don’t get tired. Its just getting interesting!
Yes it is loaded as a kernel driver. The associated service shown in task manager shows 460K (VM). The question is, does this service reflect the true memory usage of the kernel driver? That is, if the service is stopped does the kernel driver get unloaded and the memory freed?
Otherwise, how does one determine how much memory is being used by this (and other) drivers? What are the advantages/disadvantes of loading as a kernel driver.
Memory usage is probably not so important (its cheap). Resource usage and how efficiently the code is written is. Inefficient memory usage may be one indicator of how well the code is written.
Gary
Don't get tired. Its just getting interesting!
All right, why not, I agree…
Yes it is loaded as a kernel driver. The associated service shown in task manager shows 460K (VM). The question is, does this service reflect the true memory usage of the kernel driver? That is, if the service is stopped does the kernel driver get unloaded and the memory freed?
No way. Anyway, these are two questions (with possibly different answers).
Does task manager show memory allocated from a driver? → No.
Does the AVG driver get unlaoded when the service is stopped? → No.
Otherwise, how does one determine how much memory is being used by this (and other) drivers?
Not easy, really. You can try the driver verifier. Go to the Start menu, click Run, type verifier and hit enter. Depending on your OS, couple of things can show up. The GUI of the verifier in Win2K is totally different from the one found in XP. Anyway, the interface is little quirky but it shouldn’t take you more than a couple of minutes to find out how to enable the verifier for the 2 AVG drivers (these are avgcore and avgfs, I believe (I may not recall the names exactly)). Then you’ll be prompted to reboot the machine.
After the reboot, fire verifier again and go to monitoring. Here you can see the number of paged and nonpaged bytes the drivers have allocated.
What are the advantages/disadvantes of loading as a kernel driver.
That’s a difficult question. Each approach has its pros and cons. However, the trend now is it move (everything that can be moved) to user mode. The reason is that every single bug in a driver usually results in a BSOD - and people hate BSOD’s. This is why e.g. McAfee, whose VirusScan engine was traditionally in a driver, moved it a DLL…
Resource usage and how efficiently the code is written is. Inefficient memory usage may be one indicator of how well the code is written.
Absolutely.
But as I already said, when designing the avast 4 engine, we faced a dilemma whether to employ some advanced, new data structures that will require extra memory but will let us work faster, or use the conservative low-memory-usage approach. We chose the new approach, and I’m happy we did.
Vlk
I agree that the use of physical memory can speed up performance. And Avast is faster than Norton AV in some repects. However, your should work toward reducing system resources usage because it is a fixed quantity in Windows 9.x.
F.