ESET's performance in the performance section in AV-Test.org tests

[SeriousHoax 83]

One of the strongest points of ESET is that it is fast and light. But in AV-Test lab's tests, ESET hasn't been achieving full marks in the performance department.

The noticeable three points are slowing down browsing speed, slowing down downloads, and slowing down apps installations which are measured in percentage and ESET got lower marks here than industry average.

Personally, I don't have much problem with the app installation slowdown because almost nobody installs new apps regularly. But browsing speed and download slowdown is important because we're always browsing the web and some of us often download various things too.

Now, what does those percentage means in a real-life scenario?
4% download slow down means how much? 23% browsing speed slowdowns mean how much on average? Is it too much? I guess testing labs like AV-Test share their full results and methods to every vendor.
Also, Is ESET doing anything to improve performance in these categories? EG: I see Kaspersky received a 0% slowdown in download speed in the latest test which is lower than they got in previous tests (1-2%) so I assume they took measures to improve it.

I know one should not judge everything from this testing lab's results and to me personally ESET feels fast but still I'm hoping for some answers. I would very much love to see ESET achieving 6 out of 6 in performance.

https://www.av-test.org/en/antivirus/home-windows/windows-10/october-2020/eset-internet-security-13.2-204010/

https://www.av-test.org/en/antivirus/home-windows/windows-10/august-2020/eset-internet-security-13.1--13.2-203110/

https://www.av-test.org/en/antivirus/home-windows/windows-10/june-2020/eset-smart-security-premium-13.1-202409/

Edited December 8, 2020 by SeriousHoax

[itman 1,659]

It also might be an issue of which AV lab is performing the testing.

In the latest A-V Comparatives Performance test, the only category Eset showed a below average is the first run category. At least this fact shows that Eset is doing more thorough scanning than we assumed:

https://www.av-comparatives.org/tests/performance-test-october-2020/

Overall, Eset was the 4th highest in performance.

Of note is of late, Kaspersky has been outscoring Eset in performance. This to me is a bit of a mystery given past Kaspersky "sluggishness" on a system. Perhaps its system watcher/snapshot features are disabled by default or set to minimal impact setting.

Edited December 8, 2020 by itman

[Marcos 5,074]

What matters is how AVs perform on a particular system. What is light in tests may be heavier on the majority of users' systems and vice-versa. Also it depends on how tests are performed; some testers prefer synthetic tests that do not reflect everyday use, e.g. they measure time during installation. However, in real world it doesn't matter if a program installs in 30 or 32 seconds simply because you don't do it every while and then.

In our recent survey only 8 out 54 users voted that ESET is heavier than competitive AVs.  Since we believe that having ESET installed should have unnoticeable effect on system performance, we will contact these users to get more details and work with them on resolving the issues.

[SeriousHoax 83]

4 hours ago, itman said:

It also might be an issue of which AV lab is performing the testing.

I've seen the AV-Comparative report also but it's not possible to get a detailed idea there because of how they show the result.

4 hours ago, itman said:

At least this fact shows that Eset is doing more thorough scanning than we assumed

This could be correct because I've seen ESET detecting malware in temp folder before it was extracted/copied in its installation location while most products detect that same file after it had made its way into its desired location. So, ESET probably scan more thoroughly and more files. ESET is also able to detect Firefox cache containing malicious script by real time protection even if the web protection is turned off. No other AV I tested managed to do that.

 

4 hours ago, itman said:

Of note is of late, Kaspersky has been outscoring Eset in performance. This to me is a bit of a mystery given past Kaspersky "sluggishness" on a system. Perhaps its system watcher/snapshot features are disabled by default or set to minimal impact setting.

No, Kaspersky don't keep system watcher/snapshot feature disabled by default. It still works the way it always has. They should be given credit for their performance improvements. But Kaspersky use more CPU and disk in the background when the device is idle or you're doing some work. ESET is better here and maybe not having a typical behavior blocker helps ESET in performance.

[SeriousHoax 83]

14 minutes ago, Marcos said:

What matters is how AVs perform on a particular system. What is light in tests may be heavier on the majority of users' systems and vice-versa. Also it depends on how tests are performed; some testers prefer synthetic tests that do not reflect everyday use, e.g. they measure time during installation. However, in real world it doesn't matter if a program installs in 30 or 32 seconds simply because you don't do it every while and then.

In our recent survey only 8 out 54 users voted that ESET is heavier than competitive AVs.  Since we believe that having ESET installed should have unnoticeable effect on system performance, we will contact these users to get more details and work with them on resolving the issues.

I agree and even in my post I said ESET is fast in my experience. The only slowdown I can feel is page loading speed but I notice this for every AV that does HTTPS scanning and it's obvious that those who does is going to be slightly slower compared to who does not. So I don't consider it as a negative thing. ESET also lets the user disable this feature completely and even exclude certain apps only. I highly appreciate this.

[itman 1,659]

5 hours ago, SeriousHoax said:

The only slowdown I can feel is page loading speed but I notice this for every AV that does HTTPS scanning and it's obvious that those who does is going to be slightly slower compared to who does not.

My own opinion on what is causing this slowdown, if present, is ineffective web page crud blocking. Crud such as ads and the like can be eliminated by a good browser ad blocker extension. Not only will there be less to process in web page rendering but there will less for Eset to scan.

Edited December 9, 2020 by itman

[SeriousHoax 83]

6 hours ago, itman said:

My own opinion on what is causing this slowdown, if present, is ineffective web page crud blocking. Crud such as ads and the like can be eliminated by a good browser ad blocker extension. Not only will there be less to process in web page rendering but there will less for Eset to scan.

No. I use Adguard DNS and also have uBlock Origin installed. So that's not the case. The delay/slowdown is very minor which I should've added in my initial comment. e.g.: If a page is loaded in 1.59 seconds with Windows Defender then it takes around 1.79 seconds with ESET on average. As I said, this slight delay is expected because WD don't to HTTPS scanning while ESET does and this delay is true for all products that do HTTPS scanning. Bitdefender has the least delay and close to WD because their approach is slightly different. They don't do HTTPS scanning for most pages you visit regularly because I guess they consider most of those trusted and scans other sites. But ESET is fine and I haven't seen anyone complaining about ESET slowing down page loading which is the opposite of Kaspersky. So, I'm not complaining, just explaining.