Do I Need Additional Antivirus Protection for Surface Pro 3?

[Christie Shelton]

I just purchased the new Surface Pro 3 and was wondering if I should install additional virus protection to protect it from viruses? I don't want something that is going to slow my Surface down because I use it to mostly to access the web. Any suggestions?

 

[leeshor]

Welcome to the forum

Any anti virus protection will slow a computer down. It's just one of those things that can't be avoided, a necessary evil. My suggestion is that you get alternate protection mostly based on the reputation of Defender which isn't all that good. Even something like AVG free would work.

 

[stevenrossvanduyn]

I have used trend micro, kasperky, bit defender and a few free ones ( avg, avira, avast) and i am presently using bit defender now for over a year and its been very good. Also its always rated in the top 3 antivirus suites in all publications you read on the net.
it hasn't slowed down my surface pro 1 or 2
I only hear bad reports about Norton, and McAfee as these slow down your computer a lot
Forget about defender that's already installed as the protection rate is not high but its better than nothing

 

[ipaq_101]

I use norton and haven't noticed any slow down, I think the older versions from years ago did slow things down, but they have since corrected the issue and made the programs less resource hungry.

 

[Moonsurface]

I just use Microsoft security essentials desktop PC I've not had a problem with that, it takes over the role of defender.

 

[lparsons21]

Security Essentials was replaced by the newer Defender in Win8.1.

I use Defender and haven't had any problems, but then I don't go to those sites well known for malware of all sorts either.

 

[Moonsurface]

Security Essentials was replaced by the newer Defender in Win8.1.

I use Defender and haven't had any problems, but then I don't go to those sites well known for malware of all sorts either.

Ahh sorry didn't realise that. Still waiting for my surface, my desktop is still win 7 and I've no plans to upgrade for the time being. I used to use AVG before but began to find that bloated.

 

[FlySwatter]

I used to be a big fan of AVG before their software became bloated (and McAfee before them). I can't tell you how many problems I've fixed for other people by removing their Norton protection suites, so obviously, I'm no fan of them. I've been running Microsoft Security Essentials and MS Defender for years now without issue (in Windows 8, they are one in the same). I also run Malware Bytes Premium concurrently (Malware Bytes is the exception when it comes to running more than one AV software program). I've haven't had a virus since I can't remember when.

 

[FlySwatter]

I use norton and haven't noticed any slow down, I think the older versions from years ago did slow things down, but they have since corrected the issue and made the programs less resource hungry.

Glad to hear of your positive experience with Norton. Perhaps they have their house in order now.

 

[leeshor]

The performance of the Norton Anti Virus improved by a wide margin beginning with 2014, but the suites are another story.

 

[malberttoo]

The performance of the Norton Anti Virus improved by a wide margin beginning with 2014, but the suites are another story.

Glad to hear that from someone technical, because I gave up on their stuff years ago as being too fat, bloated, and hard on the system resources.

 

[leeshor]

It definitely was, however I need to stress that I'm talking about the stand-alone AV program, not 360 or the Internet Security Suite. The NIS has been a nightmare for some of my customers. The majority of my customers, on their business systems, use the Symantec Endpoint Protection software managed from their server. It's very low impact.

As a side story to the early comment about not seeing any slowdown using the various AV software, if there is no slowdown it may not be doing its job. But the performance degradation is relative to the base system performance and other applications that may be running. Using ancient terminology, every file that's touched, by default, is scanned. It is checked against a database of millions of possible virus matches so it's obvious there will be some impact.

Several years ago one of my customers called to tell me he had lost Internet access. I walked him through some possible solutions but nothing I could do over the phone worked. When I got on-site the first thing I noticed is that he had Norton Internet Security installed, he neglected to tell me he installed it. I told him I would solve his problem by uninstalling the Internet Security portion of the software and leave the anti virus part. I did, and he was blown away by the performance improvement. I have found over the years that people pay less attention to the performance loss then they do to a potential performance gain. It's human nature I guess.

Any time I clone a drive I turn the anti virus off first. The speed improvement is obvious.