Tried to search on “memory” just in the CAVS and CAVS Beta forums but the search here is ■■■■■■■ up and returned results from every forum (so the results were worthless). So I’ll have to open a new post even if my question has already been answered.
I just downloaded and then installed both BOClean and CAVS (2.0 beta). This was under a virtual machine under VMWare Server so I could revert to the base snapshot after trialing these products. Looked good except for the exorbitant memory consumption by CAVS. Below are the real and virtual (pagefile) memory usage by the various BOClean and CAVS processes:
BOC424.exe: 16MB real + 17MB virtual = 33MB total
BOCore.exe: 1MB real + 0.3MB virtual = 1.3 MB total
Total memory used by BOClean = 34.3MB
CAVasm: 7MB real + 4MB virtual = 11MB total
CAVaud: 6MB real + 1.5MB virtual = 7.5MB total
CAVse: (19MB real + 17MB virtual) x 2 instances = 72MB total
CMain: 5.2MB real + 1.2MB virtual = 6.4MB total
Total memory used by CAVS = 97MB
I am currently using DiamondCS’ ProcessGuard which acts similarly to BOClean in regulating what can run in memory. ProcessGuard controls what can get into memory but does rely on the user knowing or investigating the prompts regarding what is trying to load. BOClean monitors what loads into memory and then tries to detect malware that gets there. Programs can run only if they can load into memory. The memory consumption for the two is:
BOClean: 34.3MB
ProcessGuard: 31MB
So the two aren’t too far apart in memory usage. I was thinking of replacing ProcessGuard with BOClean and since they are close then I probably will. However, when it comes to anti-virus software, CAVS is a real pig, even worse than that last version of Norton’s Internet Security Suite that I used (2003). I am currently using Grisoft’s AVG anti-virus program. Since CAVS may include anti-spyware features (I haven’t validated that yet), and for comparison, I also use Microsoft’s Windows Defender. The memory consumption for them is:
CAVS: 97MB
AVG-AV + WD: 17MB + 42MB = 59MB
So if CAVS provides the same (or better) anti-malware coverage as Windows Defender then CAVS is 38MB larger. When I saw the nearly 100MB memory footprint, I got turned off of CAVS. Yes, I included both real and virtual (pagefile) memory sizes because I am interested in how much memory, any type, an application requests to use. Even if I only look at the real memory usage, CAVS consumes 60MB wherease AVG-AV and WD together consume 26MB. There is still a huge difference in memory consumption by CAVS.
I don’t know why CAVS loads two instances of CAVse.exe. I even rebooted and still there were 2 instances of that process. The second instance of CAVse.exe adds 20MB real, 17MB virtual to the memory consumption. If the 2nd instance were eliminated, the consumption for CAVS would be about the same as for AVG-AV plus WD and then become a viable replacement if CAVS really does include the same or better anti-spyware protection of WD.
BOClean is a possible replacement for ProcessGuard. However, CAVS is way too fat. This is a beta version. Any plans on addressing the huge memory consumption? If so, what is the expected GA (general availability) release date? I need to know when to check back for a non-beta version.
Maybe this should have gone in the CAVS Beta Corner forum but I don’t see a non-admin option available to let me change the forum for this post.