Antivirus bloatware may be killing your (not so old) Windows PC

[BadThad]

When I was doing PC repair I often found 2 AV's running. The worst of which was the old Norton, which managed to infect millions of computers. It was absolute GARBAGE of an AV program bringing any PC to its knees.

 

[musicrab]

I used Norton as it was free with my telecoms provide. Until it was updated in the early part of 2025 and it spawned lots of processes totally out of the blue. I then removed it.

 

[captaincranky]

I clone my Windows 10 to a spare internal SSD using Macrium Reflect. I've NEVER been asked to reactivate Win 10 after re-installing everything from the clone. But I guess if you have changed any major piece of hardware in the meantime, then reactivation requests could be a problem......?

I very much appreciate the hit back on my query. However, your method is "cloning" to the same drive that M$ has on record, and hence the same product ID code.

FWIW. I have a different methodology. I clone to a different drive from the current OS drive altogether, and then remove it from the machine.

Now, Windows 10 is a bit quirky. I have a Win 10 Pro machine, 12th generation Intel. Basically, the only reason for it running 10, is because you can't install Win 7 at all, whatsoever, into anything later than Skylake .

Now, I tried to install an extra "simple volume" into the Win 10 machine. (A WD "Black" 6TB, it was on sale, same price a a 4TB). The Pro version of 10 wouldn't even launch, without administrative intervention on my part. So you can imagine what would happen if I installed a different OS drive altogether. Now, none other than "our own" Techspot store assures me that I have a lifetime license to W 10.

However, I'm unwilling to embrace the indignities that a good portion of you have both suffered and bellyached about since W 10's introduction. Such as, full screen demands from M$ to switch now to 10 "or else", along with crap updates bricking their machines. Which is what I fear should the need arise to install a clone for a simple reinstall, or a higher capacity OS drive.

Except this time, the "NAGS" (sorry, I meant "necessary updates"), will try to foist off M$' current "crowning achievement" on me, "Malware 11".

 

[captaincranky]

I used Norton as it was free with my telecoms provide. Until it was updated in the early part of 2025 and it spawned lots of processes totally out of the blue. I then removed it.

You do realize that these mutts, the telecoms and Norton are in cahoots, don't you? Norton pays them to bundle it with your internet subscription. They're hoping users will simply cut a check and transition to the paid version. IIRC, it's a 30 day "free trial", and not a stripped down free version.

Norton is crap, and as far as I'm concerned, it always has been. The only time I've ever used it, (or it used me), was way back in 2005. I wouldn't stop the most prevalent, "malware du jour", back then, and Ive not been inclined to revisit it since.

I stumbled into it the same way you did, save for the fact my copy was included with a prebuilt machine.

FWIW, I endured a similar experience with "Verizon TV". It came "free" with an updated FIOS installation. Well, it completely locked me out from OTA TV. After suffering all of Jack Hanna's wildlife shows I could bear, I uninstalled it.

Some months later, the OS in the TV started doing really weird sh!t. For example, spontaneously muting the sound. I can't directly connect it with the Verizon TV incident, but it sure made me wonder.

 

[WaphleStomp]

"Antivirus bloatware may be killing your (not so old) Windows PC" - There's a simple solution; either never turn on a Windows computer or simply switch to using GNU/Linux.

Shiny bells and whistles are not a fair trade for security. And, just bc M$ 'uses' the word security in a sentence doesn't automatically make their OS secure - it's not. It's historically provable Windows has never been secure, and it never will be.

There's an inverse correlation between convenience and security:
* Windows is more convenient and much less secure,
* Linux is much more secure and less convenient.

In a perfect world, one without criminals, one in which no one exploited vulnerabilities, Windows would be a great product. But, in the real world. an OS like Windows with more holes than a salad spinner, and criminals queuing to take over computers, sadly Windows is not safe.

A default Linux distro + UFW is more secure, faster, and safer than Windows, and Linux doesn't need antivirus. it's a no brainer, really.

 

[captaincranky]

exactly that happened to me a while ago with AVG free something. It worked ok for some time, but after a while it started telling me how much it protected me from viruses, even though there was no report. At some point it turned off windows 8 hybrid-boot or fast startup and told me I should buy the full version in order to "optimize" boot time. I decided to uninstall it. I assume this tactic works for a lot of people, but this is extortion, not protection.

FWIW, I have AVG free installed on a prehistoric Intel box, and it works just fine. We're talking Core 2 Duo E-7x00 on a "P-43" board, Win 7 Pro . It doesn't have "hybrid boot", or any other such nouveau nonsense. If it boots at all, I'm pretty much overjoyed.

Every once and a while, it throws up a fly out telling me I have about 20 outdated drivers, 15 outdated apps, and I really should spring for the paid version. Well no sh!t you clods, the machine is probably 15+ years old. It wouldn't even run with today's drivers or apps.

So, I just click the ad away. And, "yeah though I surf through the valley of full frontal nudity, I will fear no infection, for AVG free art with me."

BTW, why are you running Windows 8 anyway? I think it was deemed "unsupported" about 2 weeks after it was released. If you listen to M$, (or hang on their every word, as many here unfortunately do), you should just throw the machine away, and buy a new one. I mean so what if the old one winds up in a Chinese landfill? At least you'll be able to proclaim you're, "running the best version of Windows ever". Or at least that's the way M$ tells it.

 

[arrowflash]

I'm not certain, but I think YouTube is onto that extension. If I want to watch YouTube videos, I even have to kill the builtin ad blocker in Opera

I've been hearing lots about YouTube cracking down on adblockers, but I've never been affected personally. Maybe because I actually use YouTube very little (a couple of hours/week at most) and most of the content I watch has little monetization or no monetization at all.

 

[captaincranky]

I've been hearing lots about YouTube cracking down on adblockers, but I've never been affected personally. Maybe because I actually use YouTube very little (a couple of hours/week at most) and most of the content I watch has little monetization or no monetization at all.

Perhaps Ublock has done a leapfrog over YouTube's blocking. (Which of course will be be followed eventually by a YouTube retaliatory measure).
I can't respond intelligently as I've never used the extension myself. Opera's ad blocker does a fair to middlin' job on its own.

I do watch a couple of channels with ads from people that could be considered, "inflluencers". But that's mostly with photographic and musical topics. certainly not with mega a**holes like the Kardashians.

As far as "AV solutions killing my performance", I don't have an issue with the Avira free I'm running. The biggest slug on this machine is Firefox. Right now, it has about 40 processes running, with one at 675 KB of usage! It bleeds memory like a stuck pig. At least until it hits the 8GB I have, then it just stops working and it's time for a reboot. Restart, launch FF with all the same tabs as before, and it reads about half of what it was using. Since this is Win 7, I dunno if the fact this is an ESR release has any bearing on it.

Since I'm nobody's uncle nor brother in law, I only have the one AV installed.

 

[WaphleStomp]

Perhaps Ublock has done a leapfrog over YouTube's blocking. (Which of course will be be followed eventually by a YouTube retaliatory measure).
I can't respond intelligently as I've never used the extension myself. Opera's ad blocker does a fair to middlin' job on its own.

I do watch a couple of channels with ads from people that could be considered, "inflluencers". But that's mostly with photographic and musical topics. certainly not with mega a**holes like the Kardashians.

As far as "AV solutions killing my performance", I don't have an issue with the Avira free I'm running. The biggest slug on this machine is Firefox. Right now, it has about 40 processes running, with one at 675 KB of usage! It bleeds memory like a stuck pig. At least until it hits the 8GB I have, then it just stops working and it's time for a reboot. Restart, launch FF with all the same tabs as before, and it reads about half of what it was using. Since this is Win 7, I dunno if the fact this is an ESR release has any bearing on it.

Since I'm nobody's uncle nor brother in law, I only have the one AV installed.

Ghostery is truly much better than any of those.

 

[jeffbert]

I use Norton and have never had a problem with it. Not tech savvy, though did swap my hdd for an sdd, & add some ram; but most of this is out of my league.

 

[captaincranky]

I use Norton and have never had a problem with it. Not tech savvy, though did swap my hdd for an sdd, & add some ram; but most of this is out of my league.

Are you familiar with "Task Manager"? If not, there are only 3 tabs you generally need to concern yourself with:
1 Applications: What's running. (The AV normally won't appear)
2: Processes: What's using how much memory, and who or what is using it.
(Be sure to click the "show processes from all users", button.
3: Performance: How much of the CPU and memory are being used. There's a separate small window for every core and hyper thread in the CPU,

These will be arranged thus Core / hyper thread, and so forth, for every core and hyper thread in the machine.

These three together will show you, "who's doing what to who, and how much, or how badly, they're doing it", in a manner of speaking.

The last time I used Norton was 20 years ago. It was crap then, and I never went back. "Once bitten, twice shy", or at least so they say. YRMV.

 

[WaphleStomp]

Are you familiar with "Task Manager"? If not, there are only 3 tabs you generally need to concern yourself with:
1 Applications: What's running. (The AV normally won't appear)
2: Processes: What's using how much memory, and who or what is using it.
(Be sure to click the "show processes from all users", button.
3: Performance: How much of the CPU and memory are being used. There's a separate small window for every core and hyper thread in the CPU,

These will be arranged thus Core / hyper thread, and so forth, for every core and hyper thread in the machine.

These three together will show you, "who's doing what to who, and how much, or how badly, they're doing it", in a manner of speaking.

The last time I used Norton was 20 years ago. It was crap then, and I never went back. "Once bitten, twice shy", or at least so they say. YRMV.

Yep. Norton's crap, for sure. Symantec pays big bucks for advertising and they go after gov't contracts, but their AV is garbage and nearly always in the bottom 1/2 of AV side-by-side comparisons. The only purpose I have for Norton is using their old discs as coasters.

 

[Northy]

After all these years the same three AV companies are still being named for fking up peoples machines.

 

[noblody]

FWIW, I have AVG free installed on a prehistoric Intel box, and it works just fine. We're talking Core 2 Duo E-7x00 on a "P-43" board, Win 7 Pro . It doesn't have "hybrid boot", or any other such nouveau nonsense. If it boots at all, I'm pretty much overjoyed.

Every once and a while, it throws up a fly out telling me I have about 20 outdated drivers, 15 outdated apps, and I really should spring for the paid version. Well no sh!t you clods, the machine is probably 15+ years old. It wouldn't even run with today's drivers or apps.

So, I just click the ad away. And, "yeah though I surf through the valley of full frontal nudity, I will fear no infection, for AVG free art with me."

BTW, why are you running Windows 8 anyway? I think it was deemed "unsupported" about 2 weeks after it was released. If you listen to M$, (or hang on their every word, as many here unfortunately do), you should just throw the machine away, and buy a new one. I mean so what if the old one winds up in a Chinese landfill? At least you'll be able to proclaim you're, "running the best version of Windows ever". Or at least that's the way M$ tells it.

it happened ages ago, I since then moved to win8.1 and 10, unfortunately win 11 is not supported so probably that 12YO computer will either get linux or ... not ). It should be replaced, but with 32GB ram, SSD and a 960GTX it is more than what the current owners (my parents) need

 

[LimyG]

I use Norton and have never had a problem with it. Not tech savvy, though did swap my hdd for an sdd, & add some ram; but most of this is out of my league.

What CaptainCranky said about Task manager.

If you check I bet you will find that it is using resources, all the time. How much I don't know, but Norton is infamous for using a lot of system resources.

If you were to change to more light weight service. (I like Malwarebytes - plus it can be run with windows defender realtime protection on, 2x real protection. That's kind of a big NO NO usually. Emsisoft is similar to Malwarebytes in that way.)

Personally I don't bother with running defender in realtime protection, but no harm in doing so IF you use specifically Malwarebytes, or business orientated Emsisoft.

My point - finally. If you change your security setup - main thing is get rid of that Norton abomination, it's possible you will notice your PC is a little faster at times. And you WILL be more secure!!)

Norton is trash. The only reason they exist is due to their "bundling business" model.

 

[jeffbert]

What CaptainCranky said about Task manager.

If you check I bet you will find that it is using resources, all the time. How much I don't know, but Norton is infamous for using a lot of system resources.

If you were to change to more light weight service. (I like Malwarebytes - plus it can be run with windows defender realtime protection on, 2x real protection. That's kind of a big NO NO usually. Emsisoft is similar to Malwarebytes in that way.)

Personally I don't bother with running defender in realtime protection, but no harm in doing so IF you use specifically Malwarebytes, or business orientated Emsisoft.

My point - finally. If you change your security setup - main thing is get rid of that Norton abomination, it's possible you will notice your PC is a little faster at times. And you WILL be more secure!!)

Norton is trash. The only reason they exist is due to their "bundling business" model.

I got Norton from Xfinity, which was part of the package, until it was not. I did not mind paying for it after that, because I wanted the protection. But every time N tries to lure me in to paying even more, I refuse. I run quick scan every day, though N recommends Smart scan, whose only solution is to pay even more.

BTW, N is way down on the list of apps, 0% CPU, to 1.4 % looking at all the related processes.

I also use SYSTEM MECHANIC, though I cannot recall why I installed it years ago; seems helpful; though I do not use its AV.

Currently, my DELL w/ I5 & 16G works rather well; Right now, Chrome is open, with many tabs; Vivaldi is streaming oldies, & I usually have Opera open with many tabs. Still runs just fine.

 

[Melkor Unlimited]

After all these years the same three AV companies are still being named for fking up peoples machines.

Call that ... Tradition

 

[bclaymiles]

I'm not certain, but I think YouTube is onto that extension. If I want to watch YouTube videos, I even have to kill the builtin ad blocker in Opera

Works "fine" on firefox. When YT did their most aggressive attempt to cripple the site for those trying to protect their privacy last year, uBlock released updates that largely resolved it. I say 'largely' because there are some minor glitches - inability to always see the preview frames while hovering over the 'play' bar, odd, blank frames on the main page for 'shorts' at random. And also an occasional stoppage when jumping forward in a video, but that just requires a stop and start of the player.

Opera is too much of a memory hog for me for regular use. I do use it daily, but for specific subsets of sites/tabs that I prefer to keep segregated from FF just for convenience. Used to use Vivaldi minimally, but it's also a memory hog, and their autoupdate process is stupid.

 

[bclaymiles]

I note the couple of mentions of windows Task Manager. It's fine at the most basic level, but if you want far more control, I recommend Process Lasso (and coupled with Park Control). There's a free version, but I was so impressed within a few days I sprung for the lifetime license (not expensive). I won't even both listing the abilities it has and the benefits - there's too many - better to just search for it and give it a try.

 

[acrossthestars]

The only thing you really need these days is a good adblocker like uBO, that not only blocks ads but also blocks malvertising that try to take advantage of browser exploits.

I am starting to notice just how...infested with ads every website is. You open a page without an ad-blocker enabled, you get bombarded with like 5 or 6 ads at once—some of them take up half the page, each of them add 2-4% more weight to the processing required to render the site—the cumulative effect of this being either incredible levels of slowdown (even on a modern, multi-core processor) and the fan ramping up or the website crashes.

If I didn’t know better, I’d swear every single website these days is just a viral threat vector. Ads needs to be sensibly placed or people are going to start boycotting their websites. Maybe we need to go back to $0.99 subscriptions. Something to disincentivize this absolute deluge of advertising sludge bogging down the web.

 

[monkeylove]

"Antivirus bloatware may be killing your (not so old) Windows PC" - There's a simple solution; either never turn on a Windows computer or simply switch to using GNU/Linux.

Shiny bells and whistles are not a fair trade for security. And, just bc M$ 'uses' the word security in a sentence doesn't automatically make their OS secure - it's not. It's historically provable Windows has never been secure, and it never will be.

There's an inverse correlation between convenience and security:
* Windows is more convenient and much less secure,
* Linux is much more secure and less convenient.

In a perfect world, one without criminals, one in which no one exploited vulnerabilities, Windows would be a great product. But, in the real world. an OS like Windows with more holes than a salad spinner, and criminals queuing to take over computers, sadly Windows is not safe.

A default Linux distro + UFW is more secure, faster, and safer than Windows, and Linux doesn't need antivirus. it's a no brainer, really.

According to the article "Which Operating System has the Most Vulnerabilities?" by Lunduke, the OS that has the most vulnerabilities following information from CVEDetails is Debian, followed by Android, Ubuntu, iOS for the iPhone, Windows 10, Windows 7, Mac OS, iOS for the iPad, and Windows 11.

Of course, this does not mean that systems with the fewest vulnerabilities are the best, as several of them might be newer or aren't that popular. Rather, all systems are vulnerable, and that several vulnerabilities are not known until systems are infected by malware, and are fixed given patching and updating. The latter lead to increasing costs, and dealing with that become difficult given reliance on volunteers.

Meanwhile, malware authors might focus on popular systems, and they're popular because they are easy to use, has drivers for the latest hardware, etc., while less popular systems might be the opposite. See, for example, Dedoimedo's article, "The Year of the Linux dissatisfaction".

In addition, ease of use, more drivers available, etc., make systems more complex, and that in turn may lead to more possible vulnerabilities.

 

[bclaymiles]

I update windows with a very useful free program called, "Windows Update Mini Tool." or WUMT. Gives total freedom of what to download and when.

This intrigued me, so I went looking for it. However, there's no real provenance. Some guy posted a compiled app on a forum. No source code. Digging deeper, there's a fork of it on github that's open source. I'd recommend that as a safer choice.

https://github.com/DavidXanatos/wumgr

 

[WaphleStomp]

According to the article "Which Operating System has the Most Vulnerabilities?" by Lunduke, the OS that has the most vulnerabilities following information from CVEDetails is Debian, followed by Android, Ubuntu, iOS for the iPhone, Windows 10, Windows 7, Mac OS, iOS for the iPad, and Windows 11.

Of course, this does not mean that systems with the fewest vulnerabilities are the best, as several of them might be newer or aren't that popular. Rather, all systems are vulnerable, and that several vulnerabilities are not known until systems are infected by malware, and are fixed given patching and updating. The latter lead to increasing costs, and dealing with that become difficult given reliance on volunteers.

Meanwhile, malware authors might focus on popular systems, and they're popular because they are easy to use, has drivers for the latest hardware, etc., while less popular systems might be the opposite. See, for example, Dedoimedo's article, "The Year of the Linux dissatisfaction".

In addition, ease of use, more drivers available, etc., make systems more complex, and that in turn may lead to more possible vulnerabilities.

Lunduke has zero credibility. He's considered a grifter, troll, and right-wing whackjob. His OS vulnerability article is rife with infactualities and completely unsubstantiable.

Specifically, he uses apples-to-oranges CVE counting.

Treating Debian Linux CVEs like Windows/iOS CVEs is wholly invalid: Debian CVE counts are issues across thousands of packaged apps and libraries which come from GNU and many other suppliers, not just the OS. Even CVEdetails.com warns its statistics “may not be reliable.”

Suggesting a higher CVE count simply identifies a less-secure OS is completely flawed and not supported. CVE volume is affected by reporting/processing policies and changes, not just worsening security. The problem with this oversimplified reasoning is CVE counts do not directly measure real-world security. A rise in CVEs can simply reflect more active reporting, more transparency, or changes in disclosure policy, rather than an actual increase in exploitable weaknesses. Implying a correlatable and causal relationship between a CVE count and vulnerability of an OS is not accurate nor reliable.

Likewise with Android vs. iOS. Considering the superficial notion iOS has 10% of Android’s CVE count, so therefore it's 1,000% more secure is equally flawed as stating a higher CVE count equates to more vulnerabilities. CVE counts are not a valid or industry-recognised security metric for the simple and obvious reasons stated above. Disclosure scope and CVE Numbering Authority (CNA) practices differ widely with each OS, vendor, project, 3rd-party CNA. Some, like Debian include thousands of packages, others only include the kernel or core system. Two OS creators can have grossly varying CNA scope definitions.

Again, superficially stating Linux is less secure based solely on CVE counts ignores, in 2024, the Linux kernel became a CNA and began issuing many more CVEs, inflating totals bc of policy, not bc of vulnerability.

Making a sweeping claim open source is the more vulnerable than closed source conflates and incorrectly equates code transparency with insecurity, and disregards severity/exploitation context, for which the article does not normalize.

Using total historical CVEs for some claims and cherry-picking recent major versions for others, without normalizing for code size, age, install base, or disclosure practices, falsely biases the conclusion, verifiable in the article’s own methodology description.

 

[LimyG]

This intrigued me, so I went looking for it. However, there's no real provenance. Some guy posted a compiled app on a forum. No source code. Digging deeper, there's a fork of it on github that's open source. I'd recommend that as a safer choice.

https://github.com/DavidXanatos/wumgr

Yes, Thank you for mentioning that. I should have.

I downloaded it quite a while ago, and it was from Github. I hadn't thought that other sites might be offering some dodgy version of it. Very dangerous, it's a powerful piece of Software.

So what you said is spot on. Anyone intersested check carefully the download source.

BTW: I used it today for W10 Aug patch Tuesday. As usual everything went perfectly. Been using it for 7 months now. I scan regularly, and errr on the paranoid side if anything goes off, or just slow on my PC. That hasn't happend, so I am comfortable using it.

Thanks again for mentioning Download location.

BTW: When I read about it, it was called WUMT. I didn't follow the link in that article, never do.
Searched myself and arrived at Github, check it out, felt it legit. But if memory serves it didn't use the same acyromnm "WUMT." on Github. Memory is a bit fuzzy.

However I noticed the link you provided the end of it says, wumgr.
As in Windows update manager. Not sure if that's important, but as you correctly implied, with this type of software, it's important to check the source and details. Github. Wouldn't download it anywhere else. Thanks again.

 

[LimyG]

I got Norton from Xfinity, which was part of the package, until it was not. I did not mind paying for it after that, because I wanted the protection. But every time N tries to lure me in to paying even more, I refuse. I run quick scan every day, though N recommends Smart scan, whose only solution is to pay even more.

BTW, N is way down on the list of apps, 0% CPU, to 1.4 % looking at all the related processes.

I also use SYSTEM MECHANIC, though I cannot recall why I installed it years ago; seems helpful; though I do not use its AV.

Currently, my DELL w/ I5 & 16G works rather well; Right now, Chrome is open, with many tabs; Vivaldi is streaming oldies, & I usually have Opera open with many tabs. Still runs just fine.

Mmm, not to bad if it's at 0%. As you said with all the linked processes 1.4%.

Not awful. But when an antimalware program is not updating or scanning and just sitting at the desktop, I expect it, in totality to be 0.Xx%

Thing is that's a snap shot in time. Not saying you are wrong at all, and it would require monitoring for a while with something more detailed than task manager.

It is better than I expected though. My bias against Norton runs deep! Heh Heh.

About System Mechanic. A very well known maintenance, house cleaning for windows software.
Years ago I had it installed. It's likely one of the safe ones, and does appear to clean up a lot of junk.

Still I could never really notice before and after performance differenence, and then years ago when I got more interested in PCs, and how to get windows to run with less bloat, I stopped using all those kind of programs. Some of them are just snake oil. Registry cleaners are usually best avoided too.

I do all that stuff myself, and much more. But I don't mess with the registry just for the sake of cleaning it. Some registry tweaks are really useful, but as everyone will know, backup first.
A lot of damage can be done, which is hard to trace if a mistake is made. Likely not, but the potential for really bad stuff always exists when in the registry.