Vipre Antivirus : No System Performance Degradation

Vipre Antivirus is a great antivirus software solution with all the right features. Vipre is easy to use and is specifically designed to not slow down your PC. It’s not a typo, VIPRE stands for Virus Intrusion Protection Remediation Engine.

And it certainly is a low-impact package. After our Vista PC had booted, we saw less than 15 seconds of CPU activity as Vipre initialised - a very light touch for a security package. Even more impressively, RAM usage for the total system peaked at just 762MB during start-up and fell to 516MB within a minute..

Features

As its name suggests, Vipre offers protection from just the malware end of the internet security problem, covering both anti-virus and anti-spyware. This certainly eases the problem of it clashing with other security software, but you’ll still need to bring in your own firewall software.

Performance

One thing we found faintly disturbing was that, by default, Vipre asked permission before downloading updates. These came reasonably frequently, once a day or so, but it was easy to get distracted and do something other than download the latest update, even if the warning alert was present in the Taskbar. Also, although Vipre has been submitted for external testing, third-party results weren’t available at the time of going to press so, with no track record of protection, it’s difficult to recommend.

Ease of use

While the software is not tricky to use, its interface is not particularly sophisticated. Those with a good working knowledge of security software will be able to find their way around but beginners might be better off with a full suite.

Support

Sunbelt Software provides a wealth of support options. Within the contextual Help files--when you are on the Tools page, Help opens to the sections on tools. There is also a list of online help URLs, e-mail help addresses, and a toll-free telephone support available on every Help page, so that if you still can't find the answer, you are welcome to try other areas of support. You can even send feedback on the Help file itself. Unfortunately, telephone support is only available Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. EST, so if you have a critical problem on the weekend, you'll have to send an e-mail.

Value for money

For a single user, £29.95 is reasonable value for what you get, but if you have more than one PC you can pay £49.95 for an unlimited site licence. If you’ve got more than the three or five PCs on your network usually offered in security software licences, this could work out as an attractive option. The downside, as usual, is that savvy downloaders will find decent alternatives available free of charge.

Results

Lets take a look at Antivirus software in terms of how much of a PC Computer's resources are required to perform antivirus scans. The results of this test show that the resources from the antivirus software were impacted, as the ensuing scanning speeds searching for Virus Infections and other comparable variables ranged in a 0.6% to 6.4% drain of the computers resources, specifically effecting the computers memory.

This test was conducted using the top 10 brands of Antivirus software that averaged the most consumer sales to date.

AntiVirus Brands in correlation to Computer Resource Usage upon Memory

% of Memory Usage During AntiVirus Scanning

By looking at this Antivirus software comparing virus scans to memory usage, the lower the percentage of usage, the faster ones computer will perform.

In reviewing the antivirus programs volume of memory during a manual virus scan, the results show a lighter aggregate of memory in use with the VIPRE Antivirus software, while the Trend Micro AntiVirus takes up more than 4 times the amount of attributed memory resources.

AntiVirus Software volume of memory during a manual Virus Scan (in Megabytes)

Aside from the VIPRE AntiVirus program, the other AntiVirus Programs have demonstrated a heavy-weighted strain on the memory usage. These antivirus programs is one of many factors that can reduce the performance of a Windows Operating System

Some of the main reasons for switching to Vipre :

1. Reduced product update & download times
2. Control over annoying pop up notifications
3. Low impact on my primary operating systems
4. Free 24 Hour US based technical phone support (BOT-FREE)
5. Easy to read Windows core level monitoring and protection
6. A great working tool in PC Explorer for advanced settings

What I liked:

• The cool logo :-)
• It works perfectly with Windows 7, even though the site mentions only Windows XP / Vista
• The installation is very quick, there aren’t many options to tweak which could confuse less tech-savvy users
• Both the EICAR test file and a malware sample were correctly recognized by the on-access scanner (of course I can’t say what the general detection rate of the product is, since I don’t currently have access to a larger malware collection)
• On a full scan cookies were detected as an issue (a pet peeve of mine – I consider that such detections are not really relevant and only frighten users), but they are classified (correctly!) as low risk and there is a very objective, factual and “calm” description about the issue when you ask for more details

The Good: Vipre combines antivirus and antispyware in one engine; offers secure deletion of files and browsing history; exposes hidden processes running on your computer; fully functional, 15-day, free trial.
The Bad: Vipre does not yet include firewall protection.
The Bottom Line: Vipre combines antivirus and antispyware technology in a fast and light application that also includes a worthy set of security tools.

A fully functional 15 day trial version of this Vipre Antivirus is available for download at the website of Vipre Antivirus. The best thing about this download is that you don’t have to fill up a long registration form for the download. Just log on to the website and grab your copy of the free trial version. And if you like it, I guess $29.95 USD, which is the price of the Vipre Antivirus, is not a big amount if you consider your computer’s security as an important thing.

Conclusion
 
Vipre Anti-virus + Anti-Spyware is the best utility of its kind that I have used in a long time. It is surprisingly light on system resources even while scanning, you won’t even know it’s running. The liberal Home Site Licensing is very welcome for the user on a tight budget. The cost of a one year unlimited license is $49.95 which covers all of the PC’s you have in the residence. A cheaper license of $29.95 can be purchased for one machine. If you are looking for a powerful security program that does not slow down your PC then Vipre is highly recommended.

Rating

• Installation: 8
• Ease of Use: 9
• Features: 9
• Performance: 10
• Product Support: 8