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graemeh88

macrumors member
Original poster
May 25, 2010
33
0
Would running Norton Antivirus in the background cut my battery life in half while using the lowest brightness possible, or are there other possible issues here?
 
It depends on the CPU use, but there are other free and less resource-taking AV titles for Mac OS X out there, like ClamXav or so.

Use MRoogle to find those thousands of AV threads, but I use Mac OS X since 2004 and never came upon a trojan or any other kind of malware, and I don't use any AV software and don't install anything I come upon (common sense). And viruses don't exist for Mac OS X (are currently not in public circulation, for those present tense confusers). Norton could be viewed as a virus though, or at least as some kind of malware.
 
It depends on the CPU use, but there are other free and less resource-taking AV titles for Mac OS X out there, like ClamXav or so.

Use MRoogle to find those thousands of AV threads, but I use Mac OS X since 2004 and never came upon a trojan or any other kind of malware, and I don't use any AV software and don't install anything I come upon (common sense). And viruses don't exist for Mac OS X (are currently not in public circulation, for those present tense confusers). Norton could be viewed as a virus though, or at least as some kind of malware.

so realistically, running it in background shouldnt cut battery life in half?
 
so realistically, running it in background shouldnt cut battery life in half?

I don't know, it depends on the CPU use, and if Norton AV consumes 50% CPU (out of 200%) then the battery life will not be as advertised. But as said before, and as will be said again and again, AV software is not needed, if one employs one's brain and common sense, as malware has to be installed manually by yourself, which means you have to enter your password. If you don't pirate software either or install software downloaded from dubious sources, you should be more than on the safe side.

But again, use MRoogle or the forum search to find thousand of virus angst threads.
 
its the version which covers both osx and bootcamp at the same time, thats the only reason i have it

I didn't even ever have a virus on windows so I'm not running AV on windows

so realistically, running it in background
shouldnt cut battery life in half?
no it shouldn't.

It's up to you if you want to have it running, I always felt (under windows that is, but wouldn't be so much different) that most AV would get worse in terms of resource usage over time and usually, whenever I tried one, after 4 weeks I uninstalled it because the system became sluggish - and never looked back. I'm just careful what software I install etc.
 
I didn't even ever have a virus on windows so I'm not running AV on windows


no it shouldn't.

It's up to you if you want to have it running, I always felt (under windows that is, but wouldn't be so much different) that most AV would get worse in terms of resource usage over time and usually, whenever I tried one, after 4 weeks I uninstalled it because the system became sluggish - and never looked back. I'm just careful what software I install etc.

alright, thanks
 
as previously said, running AV on mac is like putting on two condoms while piping, pointless
 
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