How much memory does Norton AntiVirus eat up?

  • Thread starter Thread starter *Vanguard*
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*Vanguard*

For users of Norton AntiVirus but which have *NO* other Symantec
products installed, how much memory is consumed by all processes
associated with just Norton AntiVirus? Please, no comments regarding
your opinion as to what is better or worse.

I have Norton Internet Security (NIS) 2003 which includes an integrated
Norton AntiVirus (NAV) 2003. Together their memory footprint is 134MB.
Uffda, what a pig! After struggling with their firewall for a couple
years on several machines, wasting lots of time with their tech support,
and having to reinstall numerous times, I'm dumping their firewall.
However, I still like their anti-virus product. After trying to install
it separately, and after talking to Symantec, I find that Norton
Antivirus cannot be installed seperately of Norton Internet Security.
You can install just NIS, or NIS + NAV, but you cannot install just NAV.
So as part of the process in deciding whether to stick with NAV or use
something better, like Kaspersky, I'd like to find out how much memory
NAV alone uses.

I'd like to know what just what is the memory footprint for NAV. I
can't install it separately from Norton Internet Security. If you have
more than one Symantec product installed, they share some processes and
add others so it would be difficult to isolate just the memory usage for
Norton AntiVirus alone. The auto-protect service (navapsvc.exe) is
small at just 996 KB. If NAV uses the ccApp.exe (Common Client
Application) process, that increases the footprint but, as I recall, it
wasn't very big. The other processes I remember when using NIS + NAV
were ccEvtMgr (Symantec's Event Manager) and ccPxySvc (their transparent
proxy). If ccPxySvc is NOT used for NAV then the memory footprint for
NAV would go way down.

NIS + NAV processes ate up 134MB of which somewhere around 115 MB of
that was just for the ccPxySvc service! If NAV does not use that
piggish proxy then maybe it would consume only around 19 MB. ccPxySvc
was the pig so if it isn't used for NAV alone then the memory
requirement goes way down.

Please answer the question posted. Personal experiences are far too
limited in exposure and expertise varies greatly in maintenance and
eradication. Whether NAV is good or bad or whether other products are
better or worse are not relevant. I'm am not starting this thread to
begin discussions regarding the quality and efficacy of various
antivirus programs. Please stay on topic. Thank you.
 
*Vanguard* said:
For users of Norton AntiVirus but which have *NO* other Symantec
products installed, how much memory is consumed by all processes
associated with just Norton AntiVirus? Please, no comments regarding
your opinion as to what is better or worse.

I have Norton Internet Security (NIS) 2003 which includes an
integrated Norton AntiVirus (NAV) 2003. Together their memory
footprint is 134MB. Uffda, what a pig! After struggling with their
firewall for a couple years on several machines, wasting lots of time
with their tech support, and having to reinstall numerous times, I'm
dumping their firewall. However, I still like their anti-virus
product. After trying to install it separately, and after talking to
Symantec, I find that Norton Antivirus cannot be installed seperately
of Norton Internet Security. You can install just NIS, or NIS + NAV,
but you cannot install just NAV. So as part of the process in
deciding whether to stick with NAV or use something better, like
Kaspersky, I'd like to find out how much memory NAV alone uses.

I'd like to know what just what is the memory footprint for NAV. I
can't install it separately from Norton Internet Security. If you
have more than one Symantec product installed, they share some
processes and add others so it would be difficult to isolate just the
memory usage for Norton AntiVirus alone. The auto-protect service
(navapsvc.exe) is small at just 996 KB. If NAV uses the ccApp.exe
(Common Client Application) process, that increases the footprint
but, as I recall, it wasn't very big. The other processes I remember
when using NIS + NAV were ccEvtMgr (Symantec's Event Manager) and
ccPxySvc (their transparent proxy). If ccPxySvc is NOT used for NAV
then the memory footprint for NAV would go way down.

NIS + NAV processes ate up 134MB of which somewhere around 115 MB of
that was just for the ccPxySvc service! If NAV does not use that
piggish proxy then maybe it would consume only around 19 MB. ccPxySvc
was the pig so if it isn't used for NAV alone then the memory
requirement goes way down.

Please answer the question posted. Personal experiences are far too
limited in exposure and expertise varies greatly in maintenance and
eradication. Whether NAV is good or bad or whether other products are
better or worse are not relevant. I'm am not starting this thread to
begin discussions regarding the quality and efficacy of various
antivirus programs. Please stay on topic. Thank you.
Click to expand...

Try going to NAV and NIS 2004. I have both of them and just checked the
processes list on my computer, the above mentioned processes are using a
total of 31MB of RAM.
 
*Vanguard* said:
For users of Norton AntiVirus but which have *NO* other Symantec
products installed, how much memory is consumed by all processes
associated with just Norton AntiVirus? Please, no comments regarding
your opinion as to what is better or worse.
Click to expand...

I'm running NAV 2003. Regarding the items you inquired about:

NAVAPSVCE.EXE: 6.00MB
CCAPP.EXE: 12.3MB
CCEVTMGR.EXE: 2.18MB
ccPxySvc: Not running on my system- it's part of Norton Personal Firewall
NPROTECT.EXE: 1020KB

Can you not access the NIS disc via Windows Explorer and just launch the
NAV setup.exe to install NAV by itself? Or, failing that, can you
uninstall selected components after the full NIS install, leaving only
NAV?

Regards,
Ian.
 
The Prophecy said in news:Ji3uc.3315$CD4.1975@edtnps84:
Try going to NAV and NIS 2004. I have both of them and just checked
the processes list on my computer, the above mentioned processes are
using a total of 31MB of RAM.
Click to expand...

Could you list the NAV- and NIS-related processes and how much each
consumes in memory? I'd be especially interested in how much ccPxySvc
takes. Thanks.
 
*Vanguard* said:
The Prophecy said in news:Ji3uc.3315$CD4.1975@edtnps84:

Could you list the NAV- and NIS-related processes and how much each
consumes in memory? I'd be especially interested in how much ccPxySvc
takes. Thanks.
Click to expand...

ccapp.exe: 18MB

ccevtmgr.exe: 3.3MB

ccproxy.exe: 5.9MB *this is the 2004 version of ccpxysvc.exe

ccsetmgr.exe: 3.6MB
 
The Prophecy said in news:x4auc.8641$ig5.6357@edtnps89:
ccapp.exe: 18MB

ccevtmgr.exe: 3.3MB

ccproxy.exe: 5.9MB *this is the 2004 version of ccpxysvc.exe

ccsetmgr.exe: 3.6MB
Click to expand...

Thanks much for the specific information. Just before checking this
newsgroup for additional responses, I started to hunt around instead NIS
to see what configuration caused any changes in memory usage. I found
that enabling the Parental Control feature add 110MB to the ccPxySvc
process. This is the huge list of sites and their categories that
apparently Symantec loads into memory probably as some huge lookup
table. I only enabled the Parental Control feature for one reason: to
provide URL filtering. I have unchecked all site categories (to block)
and all newsgroup categories (to block) since I don't need to censor
myself. However, I like the specific domain block where you can enter
just a partial URL, like "doubleclick.com", "doubleclick.net", and
"doubleclick.us" to block all their sites and links to them.

The sites could be blocked by using a hosts file but its size becomes
huge as you have to list dozens of sites for one domain. They may have
..com, .net, .us, .info, and other TLDs registered and inuse. They may
have several hostnames specified, as in "<hostname>.domain.<tld>". And,
for example, they may have dozens of hostnames based on their region,
like "<hostname>.<cc>.doubleclick.<tld>". It gets ridiculous to have to
list all these domains just because the hosts file demans a FQDN (fully
qualified domain name) in its list. NIS really doesn't give me regular
expressions to provide easy URL filtering, like using
":\\\\.*\.doubleclick\..*\\" (I don't have anything to check this
regular expression with so I'm guessing this is what it would be to
detect URLs of the form ":\\*.doubleclick.*\" so that I am only looking
for ".doubleclick." in the domain portion of the URL).

So if I disable the Parental Control feature, memory usage for the NIS +
NAV processes total 28MB. With Ad Blocking, Privacy Control, and
SpamAlert enabled then the total memory footprint goes up another 3MB.
I didn't figure NIS 2004 would really significantly improve its memory
usage unless there was a difference in its configuration between you and
I, so my guess is that you do not have the Parental Control enabled or
decided not to include in it the install. With it being such a pig for
memory, and if I will end up disabling it all the time to keep from
using up all that memory (when all I want of the feature is URL
filtering), maybe I'll uninstall, cleanup, and reinstall and leave out
the Parental Control feature this time.

Thanks for your assistance.
 
*Vanguard* said:
The Prophecy said in news:x4auc.8641$ig5.6357@edtnps89:

Thanks much for the specific information. Just before checking this
newsgroup for additional responses, I started to hunt around instead
NIS to see what configuration caused any changes in memory usage. I
found that enabling the Parental Control feature add 110MB to the
ccPxySvc process. This is the huge list of sites and their
categories that apparently Symantec loads into memory probably as
some huge lookup table. I only enabled the Parental Control feature
for one reason: to provide URL filtering. I have unchecked all site
categories (to block) and all newsgroup categories (to block) since I
don't need to censor myself. However, I like the specific domain
block where you can enter just a partial URL, like "doubleclick.com",
"doubleclick.net", and "doubleclick.us" to block all their sites and
links to them.

The sites could be blocked by using a hosts file but its size becomes
huge as you have to list dozens of sites for one domain. They may
have .com, .net, .us, .info, and other TLDs registered and inuse.
They may have several hostnames specified, as in
"<hostname>.domain.<tld>". And, for example, they may have dozens of
hostnames based on their region, like
"<hostname>.<cc>.doubleclick.<tld>". It gets ridiculous to have to
list all these domains just because the hosts file demans a FQDN
(fully qualified domain name) in its list. NIS really doesn't give
me regular expressions to provide easy URL filtering, like using
":\\\\.*\.doubleclick\..*\\" (I don't have anything to check this
regular expression with so I'm guessing this is what it would be to
detect URLs of the form ":\\*.doubleclick.*\" so that I am only
looking for ".doubleclick." in the domain portion of the URL).

So if I disable the Parental Control feature, memory usage for the
NIS + NAV processes total 28MB. With Ad Blocking, Privacy Control,
and SpamAlert enabled then the total memory footprint goes up another
3MB. I didn't figure NIS 2004 would really significantly improve its
memory usage unless there was a difference in its configuration
between you and I, so my guess is that you do not have the Parental
Control enabled or decided not to include in it the install. With it
being such a pig for memory, and if I will end up disabling it all
the time to keep from using up all that memory (when all I want of
the feature is URL filtering), maybe I'll uninstall, cleanup, and
reinstall and leave out the Parental Control feature this time.

Thanks for your assistance.
Click to expand...

You're welcome.
 
ccapp.exe: 18MB

ccevtmgr.exe: 3.3MB

ccproxy.exe: 5.9MB *this is the 2004 version of ccpxysvc.exe

ccsetmgr.exe: 3.6MB
Click to expand...

Can someone tell me which NAV processes I can safely remove from
Startup (via MSCONFIG) and still remain protected? I'm not really big
on applications that load themselves automatically at reboot time but
don't want to remain unprotected.

TIA...
 
The Horny Goat said:
Can someone tell me which NAV processes I can safely remove from
Startup (via MSCONFIG) and still remain protected?
Click to expand...

Most of them probably have to be there once you have decided that
"on access", "autoupdating", "download scanning", and "incoming and
outgoing e-mail scanning" was the way thay you wanted to go. When
it comes right down to it - you *need* none of it. A good plan - and
"on demand" scanning does the trick with negligent impact on resources.

....of course you have to make yourself adhere to safe computing practices.
I'm not really big on applications that load themselves automatically at
reboot time but don't want to remain unprotected.
Click to expand...

People will probably want to know what OS and what version of NAV
you are using, as well as a general idea what you use your computer for.
 
The Horny Goat said:
Can someone tell me which NAV processes I can safely remove from
Startup (via MSCONFIG) and still remain protected? I'm not really big
on applications that load themselves automatically at reboot time but
don't want to remain unprotected.

TIA...
Click to expand...

For NAV to function properly, you can't remove any of those.
 
FromTheRafters said:
Most of them probably have to be there once you have decided that
"on access", "autoupdating", "download scanning", and "incoming and
outgoing e-mail scanning" was the way thay you wanted to go. When
it comes right down to it - you *need* none of it. A good plan - and
"on demand" scanning does the trick with negligent impact on resources.
Click to expand...


I understand you're implication and don't disagree, but on demand scanning
just doesn't cut it for most people. It would effectively be the same as no
virus protection. You have to remember who is on the internet these days,
they have trouble understand the term "right click". At least 70% of the
people on the Internet need AV that requires as little user intervention as
possible, if they have to actually make a decision and do something they
will fsck something up.
 
ImhoTech said:
I understand you're implication and don't disagree, but on demand scanning
just doesn't cut it for most people. It would effectively be the same as no
virus protection. You have to remember who is on the internet these days,
they have trouble understand the term "right click". At least 70% of the
people on the Internet need AV that requires as little user intervention as
possible, if they have to actually make a decision and do something they
will fsck something up.
Click to expand...

Agreed, and most of those users should not complain about resource
hogging AV programs that are attempting to do *everything* for them.
They want the AV to do everything without using anything and that
just isn't going to happen. I gave the poster the benefit of the doubt
and allowed him to decide what his capabilities are.

Sometimes the administrator of a machine isn't the user, and a perfectly
capable user of the on demand method is forced to implement on access
scanning to protect the machine. I don't usually say that on access or e-
mail scanning is worthless, only that it is unnecessary, and the more that
something does, the more resources it uses. If they don't scan program
files prior to executing them, then they *need* on access scanning (or
good policy editor settings<g>). If they don't bother to keep their app
software up-to-date, then incoming e-mail scanning and download
scanning may be warranted. If they can't be bothered to keep the defs
up-to-date, then they *need* autoupdating scanners.

Personally, I can reach the toilet paper myself....
 
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