Limiting CPU consumed while scanning

[ERG]

While scanning my PC, the CPU usage indicator spends a lot of time above 90%. That's efficient, but leaves few cycles for any other work. 

Could you add a way for the user to limit the app's CPU usage while scanning? (Just noticed MS Security Essentials has this feature).

 

[thatguy]

uh, yeah, what ERG said.  i wanna be safe, but a computer is of no use if it's only scanning for viruses/malware. please allow for a cpu limiter.

[zombunny2]

I don't see this option in MS Windows Defender, but maybe it was an option in MS Security Essentials on older versions of Windows.

The easiest way to achieve this with minimal effort would be for Immunet to change its process priority (or whatever the Windows equivalent of 'niceness' is), and let Windows handle it. I note that this is what Antivir (now Avira) does (or used to do). It just had a simple dropdown box for "scan priority", with options "idle/low/medium/high".

I just tried to see if I could do this manually via the task manager, but it doesn't seem possible, so Immunet would need to have this option added to its GUI. All I can do is change the process priority of the GUI, not the service itself...

[ritchie58]

Hey guys, thought I'd join the conversation.

I also think it's an interesting idea. For Immunet users that may have an older machine or limited computer resources, I could see where a system usage priority setting might be beneficial.

On the other hand, I could see where that could be difficult. Selectively limiting system resources to a program that's designed to keep your computer safe without sacrificing any efficacy would be a challenge indeed!

If that could be accomplished with some new code introduced I'm sure that the scan time would be rather "significantly" increased. I mean, who would want to spend maybe 2 days scanning one's C:\ drive! That's another thing to consider. 

Don't forget Immunet's Flash Scan is very quick (usually about 2 minutes or less). The Flash Scan will look at all the directories that malware likes to use for suspicious/malicious activity. 

I got a Scheduled Scan set to run a Flash Scan once a day. Only if I suspect I may be infected with something is when I'll do a more through scan. Not just with Immunet but the other security apps I use too! That's my personal approach of course but that does save on system resources being used by Immunet by not scheduling a Custom or Full scan.

Immunet's processes are hardened against outside manipulation for obvious reasons. That makes it "extremely hard" for malware to kill Immunet but, unfortunately, that also limits personal user input.

Cheers, Ritchie...