Small Business Endpoint Protection
Performance Benchmarks
Windows 7
July 2011

Document: Small Business Protection Performance Benchmarks
Authors:
M. Baquiran, D. Wren
Company: PassMark Software
Date:
27 July 2011
Report:3
Edition:1

Endpoint Protection

Small Business Security

PassMark Software

Table of Contents
TABLE OF CONTENTS......................................................................................................................................... 2
REVISION HISTORY............................................................................................................................................ 3
REFERENCES...................................................................................................................................................... 3
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ...................................................................................................................................... 4
SCORE AND RANK ............................................................................................................................................. 5
PRODUCTS AND VERSION ................................................................................................................................. 6PERFORMANCE METRICS SUMMARY ................................................................................................................ 7
TEST RESULTS ................................................................................................................................................... 9
BENCHMARK 1 – WORD DOCUMENT LAUNCH AND OPEN TIME (MILLISECONDS) ................................................................. 9
BENCHMARK 2 – INTERNET EXPLORER LAUNCH TIME (MILLISECONDS) ............................................................................... 9
BENCHMARK 3 – BOOT TIME (SECONDS) ................................................................................................................... 10
BENCHMARK 4 – ON-DEMAND SCAN TIME (SECONDS) ................................................................................................. 10
BENCHMARK 5 – SCHEDULED SCAN TIME (SECONDS) ................................................................................................... 11
BENCHMARK 6 – CPU USAGE – SCAN TIME (PERCENT) ................................................................................................ 11
BENCHMARK 7 – BROWSE TIME (SECONDS)................................................................................................................ 12
BENCHMARK 8 – FILE COPY, MOVE AND DELETE (SECONDS) .......................................................................................... 12
BENCHMARK 9 – FILE COMPRESSION AND DECOMPRESSION (SECONDS)........................................................................... 13
BENCHMARK 10 – FILE WRITE, OPEN AND CLOSE (SECONDS) ........................................................................................ 13
BENCHMARK 11 – MEMORY USAGE – SYSTEM IDLE (MEGABYTES).................................................................................. 14
BENCHMARK 12 – MEMORY USAGE – SCAN (MEGABYTES) ........................................................................................... 14
BENCHMARK 13 – CPU USAGE – SYSTEM IDLE (PERCENT) ............................................................................................ 15
DISCLAIMER AND DISCLOSURE ....................................................................................................................... 16
CONTACT DETAILS .......................................................................................................................................... 16
APPENDIX 1 – TEST ENVIRONMENT ................................................................................................................ 17
APPENDIX 2 – METHODOLOGY DESCRIPTION ................................................................................................. 18

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Revision History

Date

Revision History
Rev
Report 3,
Edition 1

Initial version of this report.

27 July 2011

References
Ref #

1

Document

What Really Slows Windows Down (URL)

Performance Benchmarks
Report 2

AuthorO. Warner,
The PC Spy

Date

2001-2011

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Executive Summary
PassMark Software® conducted objective performance testing on four publicly available Small BusinessEndpoint Protection products and a RTM version of Symantec Endpoint Protection 12 on Windows 7 between
September 2010 and July 2011. This report presents our results from these performance tests.
The software products that were tested are as follows: Symantec Endpoint Protection Small Business Edition;
 Microsoft Forefront Endpoint Protection 2010;
 Trend Micro Worry-Free Business Security;
 McAfee Total Protection for Endpoint Essentials;
 Kaspersky Business Space Security – Small Business; and ESET NOD32 Antivirus.
The above products were benchmarked using thirteen performance metrics to assess product performanceand system impact on the endpoint or client machine. The metrics which were used in testing are as follows: Word Document Launch and Open Time; Internet Explorer Launch Time; Boot Time; On-Demand Scan Time; Scheduled Scan Time; CPU Usage during Scan; Browse Time; File Copy, Move and Delete; File Compression and Decompression;
 File Write, Open and Close; Memory Usage – System Idle;
 Memory Usage – Scanning; and CPU Usage during System Idle.

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Score and Rank
PassMark Software assigned every product a score depending on its ranking in each metric. Each product hasscored points based on its rank out of six products in each test. The following table shows how each product’s
rank in a metric relates to its attained score:
Test Rank

Points Scored

1

6

2

5

3

4

4

3

5

2

6

1

We added the scores attained from each metric for each product to obtain the overall score and rank. For ahypothetical product which achieves first rank in every metric, the highest possible score attainable in testingis 78. The following table shows the overall score and result attained by each product from our testing in orderof rank:

Performance Benchmarks
Report 2

Product Name

Overall Score

Symantec Endpoint Protection Small Business Edition

58

Kaspersky Business Space Security – Small Business

55

ESET NOD32 Antivirus

49

Trend Micro Worry-Free Business Security

44

Microsoft Forefront Endpoint Protection 2010

36

McAfee Total Protection for Endpoint Essentials

30

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Products and Versions
For this report, we tested the following versions of small business security solutions:

Manufacturer

Product Name

Symantec Corp

Symantec Endpoint Protection Small Business Edition1
2

Release Year

Product Version

2011

12.1.671.4971

2010

1.95.4146.0

Microsoft Corp

Microsoft Forefront Endpoint Protection 2010

Trend Micro, Inc

Trend Micro Worry-Free Business Security3

2010

7.0.1638

McAfee, Inc

McAfee Total Protection for Endpoint Essentials4

2010

4.5.1

Kaspersky Lab

Kaspersky Business Space Security – Small Business5

2011

6.0.4.1424

2010

4.2.64.12

ESET, LLC

6

ESET NOD32 Antivirus

1This product will also be referred to as Symantec EP SBE

2This product will also be referred to as Microsoft Forefront EP 2010

3

This product will also be referred to as Trend Micro Business Security 7

4This product will also be referred to as McAfee TP for EP - Essentials

5

This product will also be referred to as Kaspersky BSS SMB

6This product will also be referred to as ESET NOD32 AV

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Performance Metrics Summary
We have selected a set of objective metrics which provide a comprehensive and realistic indication of theareas in which endpoint protection products may impact system performance for end users. Our metrics test
the impact of the software on common tasks that end-users would perform on a daily basis.
All of PassMark Software’s test methods can be replicated by third parties using the same environment toobtain similar benchmark results. Detailed descriptions of the methodologies used in our tests are available as“Appendix 2 – Methodology Description” of this report.

Benchmark 1 – Word Document Launch and Open Time
This metric measures how much security software impacts on the responsiveness and performance of theendpoint system. Microsoft Word was chosen for this test because office software is commonly found on
business computers. To test a product’s performance in this metric, we measured the amount of time taken tolaunch a large, mixed media document from Microsoft Word. To allow for caching effects by the operating
system, both the initial launch time and the subsequent launch times were measured. Our final result is anaverage of these two measurements.

Benchmark 2 – Internet Explorer Launch Time
Similar to the Word Document Launch and Open Time metric, this metric is one of many methods toobjectively measure how much a product impacts on the responsiveness of the system. This metric measures
the amount of time it takes to launch the user interface of Internet Explorer 8. To allow for caching effects by
the operating system, both the initial launch time and the subsequent launch times were measured. Our final
result is an average of these two measurements.

Benchmark 3 – Boot Time
This metric measures the amount of time taken for the machine to boot into the operating system. Security
software is generally launched at Windows startup, adding an additional amount of time and delaying thestartup of the operating system. Shorter boot times indicate that the application has had less impact on thenormal operation of the machine.

Benchmark 4 – On-Demand Scan TimeAll endpoint protection solutions have functionality designed to detect viruses and various other forms of
malware by scanning files on the system. This metric measured the amount of time required to scan a set ofclean files. Our sample file set comprised a total file size of 5.42 GB and was made up of files that would
typically be found on end-user machines, such as media files, system files and Microsoft Office documents.

Benchmark 5 – Scheduled Scan TimeThe test is performed on a copy of the test files used in Benchmark 4 – Scan Time on Demand above, however
the scan is set for a particular time via the client user interface or where the option isn’t available on the client
using the management console.

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Benchmark 6 –CPU Usage – Scan TimeThe amount of load on the CPU while security software conducts a malware scan may prevent the reasonable
use of the endpoint machine until the scan has completed. This metric measured the percentage of CPU usedby endpoint protection software when performing a scan.

Benchmark 7 – Browse Time
It is common behaviour for endpoint protection products to scan data for malware as it is downloaded fromthe internet or intranet. This behaviour may negatively impact browsing speed as products scan web content
for malware. This metric measures the time taken to browse a set of popular internet sites to consecutively
load from a local server in a user’s browser window.

Benchmark 8 – File Copy, Move and Delete
This metric measures the amount of time taken to move, copy and delete a sample set of files. The sample file
set contains several types of file formats that a Windows user would encounter in daily use. These formats
include documents (e.g. Microsoft Office documents, Adobe PDF, Zip files, etc), media formats (e.g. images,
movies and music) and system files (e.g. executables, libraries, etc).

Benchmark 9 – File Compression and Decompression
This metric measures the amount of time taken to compress and decompress different types of files. Files
formats used in this test included documents, movies and images.

Benchmark 10 – File Write, Open and Close
This benchmark was derived from Oli Warner’s File I/O test at http://www.thepcspy.com (please see
Reference #1: What Really Slows Windows Down). This metric measures the amount of time taken to write afile, then open and close that file.

Benchmark 11 – Memory Usage – System Idle
The amount of memory used while the machine is idle provides a good indication of the amount of system
resources being consumed by the endpoint protection software on a permanent basis. This metric measures
the amount of memory (RAM) used by the product while the machine and endpoint protection software are in
an idle state. The total memory usage was calculated by identifying all endpoint protection software processes
and the amount of memory used by each process.

Benchmark 12 – Memory Usage – Scan
This metric measures the amount of memory (RAM) used by the product during an antivirus scan. The total
memory usage was calculated by identifying all endpoint protection software processes and the amount ofmemory used by each process during an antivirus scan.

Benchmark 13 – CPU Usage – System Idle
This metric measures the average amount of load placed on the CPU during system idle by the antivirus
software.

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Test Results
In the following charts, we have highlighted the results we obtained for Symantec Endpoint Protection Small
Business Edition in yellow. The average has also been highlighted in grey for ease of comparison.

Benchmark 1 – Word Document Launch and Open Time (milliseconds)
The following chart compares the average time taken to launch Microsoft Word and open a 10MB document.
Products with lower launch times are considered better performing products in this category.
ESET NOD32 AV

4633

Symantec EP SBE

4712

Microsoft Forefront EP 2010

4981

Kaspersky BSS SMB

5032

Average5314

Trend Micro Business Security 75574

McAfee TP for EP - Essentials

6952

0 ms

1,000 ms 2,000 ms 3,000 ms 4,000 ms 5,000 ms 6,000 ms 7,000 ms 8,000 ms

Benchmark 2 – Internet Explorer Launch Time (milliseconds)
The following chart compares the average time taken for Internet Explorer to successively load. Products withlower load times are considered better performing products in this category.

ESET NOD32 AV

680

Trend Micro Business Security 7

723

Symantec EP SBE

744

Kaspersky BSS SMB

747

Average848

Microsoft Forefront EP 2010

993

McAfee TP for EP - Essentials

1202

0 ms

Performance Benchmarks
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200 ms

400 ms

600 ms

800 ms1,000 ms

1,200 ms

1,400 ms

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Benchmark 3 – Boot Time (seconds)
The following chart compares the average time taken for the system to boot (from a sample of five boots) for
each product tested. Products with lower boot times are considered better performing products in thiscategory.

Trend Micro Business Security 7

20.1958

ESET NOD32 AV

23.1278

Symantec EP SBE

27.5908

Average30.8956

McAfee TP for EP - Essentials

36.8512

Kaspersky BSS SMB

37.0024Microsoft Forefront EP 201040.6056

0s

5s

10 s

15 s

20 s

25 s

30 s

35 s

40 s

45 s

Benchmark 4 – On-Demand Scan Time (seconds)
The following chart compares the average time taken to scan a set of media files, system files and Microsoft
Office documents that totaled 5.42 GB. Our final result is calculated as an average of five scans, with each scan
having equal weighting. Products with lower scan times are considered better performing products in thiscategory.

Symantec EP SBE

36.00

Microsoft Forefront EP 2010

40.61

Kaspersky BSS SMB

61.80

Trend Micro Business Security 7

75.40

Average

97.87

ESET NOD32 AV

143.92

McAfee TP for EP - Essentials

162.430s

Performance Benchmarks
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20 s

40 s

60 s

80 s

100 s

120 s

140 s

160 s

180 s

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Benchmark 5 – Scheduled Scan Time (seconds)
The following chart compares the average time taken to scan a set of media files, system files and Microsoft
Office documents that totaled 5.42 GB. Our final result is calculated as an average of five scans, with each scan
having equal weighting. Products with lower scan times are considered better performing products in thiscategory. Note that no results for Trend Micro Business Security or Microsoft FEP could be obtained as the
products did not offer a way to schedule a scan on a specific folder.
Kaspersky BSS SMB

61.2

McAfee TP for EP - Essentials

90.0

Average

111.7

ESET NOD32 AV

145.6

Symantec EP SBE

149.8

0s

20 s

40 s

60 s

80 s

100 s

120 s

140 s

160 s

* Between the previous and current versions of this report, Symantec changed the recommended security default settings
for scheduled scans from the pre-release software to the final release build. The change in security recommendations has
added protection but has resulted in increased scan times. The effects of the change are reflected in this new report.
** No results for Microsoft Forefront EP 2010 and Trend Micro Business Security 7 could be obtained for this test, as the
product lacked the functionality to schedule a scan on a specific folder.

Benchmark 6 – CPU Usage – Scan Time (percent)
The following chart compares the average CPU usage during a scan of a set of media files, system files andMicrosoft Office documents that totaled 5.42 GB. Products with lower CPU usage are considered better
performing products in this category.

Trend Micro Business Security 7

10.63%

Symantec EP SBE

16.38%

Kaspersky BSS SMB

16.42%

Average17.84%

Microsoft Forefront EP 201020.85%

McAfee TP for EP - Essentials

20.89%ESET NOD32 AV

0.00%

Performance Benchmarks
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21.88%

5.00%

10.00%

15.00%

20.00%

25.00%

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Benchmark 7 – Browse Time (seconds)
The following chart compares the average time taken for Internet Explorer to successively load a set of popular
websites through the local area network from a local server machine. Products with lower browse times are
considered better performing products in this category.

Symantec EP SBE

41.50

Trend Micro Business Security 7

60.68

Kaspersky BSS SMB

103.09Average116.86

McAfee TP for EP - Essentials

168.90ESET NOD32 AV

210.13

0s

50 s

100 s

150 s

200 s

250 s

N.B.
1. Microsoft Forefront EP 2010 could not be included in this comparison due to network configurationdifferences during the testing phase. In order to calculate the overall scores, an average score was given to thisproduct for this test.

Benchmark 8 – File Copy, Move and Delete (seconds)
The following chart compares the average time taken to copy, move and delete several sets of sample files foreach product tested. Products with lower times are considered better performing products in this category.

Kaspersky BSS SMB

12.01

ESET NOD32 AV

12.43

Trend Micro Business Security 7

13.91

Average

15.71

Symantec EP SBE

16.55

Microsoft Forefront EP 2010

18.52

McAfee TP for EP - Essentials

20.82

0s

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5s

10 s

15 s

20 s

25 s

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Benchmark 9 – File Compression and Decompression (seconds)
The following chart compares the average time it takes for sample files to be compressed and decompressed
for each product tested. Products with lower times are considered better performing products in this category.

Trend Micro Business Security 7

12.71

Kaspersky BSS SMB

13.19

ESET NOD32 AV

13.21

Symantec EP SBE

13.27

Average

13.43

Microsoft Forefront EP 2010

13.98

McAfee TP for EP - Essentials

14.21

12 s

12 s

13 s

13 s

14 s

14 s

15 s

Benchmark 10 – File Write, Open and Close (seconds)
The following chart compares the average time it takes for a file to be written to the hard drive then opened
and closed 180,000 times, for each Internet Security product tested. Products with lower times are consideredbetter performing products in this category.

Symantec EP SBE

24.13

Kaspersky BSS SMB

33.88

McAfee TP for EP - Essentials

45.94

ESET NOD32 AV

116.77

Average

220.07Microsoft Forefront EP 2010

232.54

Trend Micro Business Security 7

867.140s

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200 s

300 s

400 s

500 s

600 s

700 s

800 s

900 s

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Benchmark 11 – Memory Usage – System Idle (megabytes)
The following chart compares the average amount of RAM in use by each product during a period of system
idle. This average is taken from a sample of ten memory snapshots taken at roughly 60 seconds apart after
reboot. Products that use less memory during idle are considered better performing products in this category.

Kaspersky BSS SMB

30.40

Symantec EP SBE

39.89

ESET NOD32 AV

70.62

McAfee TP for EP - Essentials

87.25

Average118.84Microsoft Forefront EP 2010

232.54

Trend Micro Business Security 7

310.68

0 MB

50 MB

100 MB

150 MB

200 MB250 MB

300 MB

350 MB

Benchmark 12 – Memory Usage – Scan (megabytes)
The following chart compares the average amount of RAM in use by each product during an antivirus scan.
This average is taken from a sample of ten memory snapshots taken at five second intervals during a scan ofsample files which have not been previously scanned by the software. Products that use less memory during ascan are considered better performing products in this category.

ESET NOD32 AV

73.51

Symantec EP SBE

88.62

Microsoft Forefront EP 2010174.17

Average

195.53

McAfee TP for EP - Essentials

222.51

Kaspersky BSS SMB

227.99Trend Micro Business Security 7

369.80

0 MB

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50 MB

100 MB

150 MB

200 MB250 MB

300 MB

350 MB

400 MB

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Benchmark 13 – CPU Usage – System Idle (percent)
The following chart compares the average CPU usage during system idle. Products with lower CPU usage areconsidered better performing products in this category.

Microsoft Forefront EP 2010

0.01%

Kaspersky BSS SMB

0.05%

Symantec EP SBE

0.17%

McAfee TP for EP - Essentials

0.39%

Average

0.40%

ESET NOD32 AV

0.90%

Trend Micro Business Security 7

0.90%

0.00%

Performance Benchmarks
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0.10%

0.20%

0.30%

0.40%

0.50%

0.60%

0.70%

0.80%

0.90%

1.00%

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Disclaimer and DisclosureThis report only covers versions of products that were available at the time of testing. The tested versions are
as noted in the “Products and Versions” section of this report. The products we have tested are not an
exhaustive list of all products available in the competitive small business security market.

Disclaimer of Liability
While every effort has been made to ensure that the information presented in this report is accurate,
PassMark Software Pty Ltd assumes no responsibility for errors, omissions, or out-of-date information andshall not be liable in any manner whatsoever for direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, or punitive
damages resulting from the availability of, use of, access of, or inability to use this information.

Disclosure
Symantec Corporation funded the production of this report and supplied some of the test scripts used for thetests.

Trademarks
All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Contact Details
PassMark Software Pty Ltd
Suite 202, Level 2
35 Buckingham St.
Surry Hills, 2010
Sydney, Australia
Phone + 61 (2) 9690 0444
Fax

+ 61 (2) 9690 0445

Web

www.passmark.com

Download Location
An electronic copy of this report can be found at the following location:
http://www.passmark.com/ftp/Endpoint Protection 2011 - Performance Testing - SMB - Report 2.pdf

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Appendix 1 – Test Environment
Endpoint Machine – Windows 7 (64-bit)
For our testing, PassMark Software used a test environment running Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit) with thefollowing hardware specifications:
CPU:
Video Card:
Motherboard:
RAM:
HDD:
Network:

Intel Core i5 750 @ 2.66GHzATI Radeon 4350 1GB
ASUS V-P7H55E, LGA1156
4GB DDR3 RAM, 1333Mhz
Samsung 1.5TB 7200RPM
Gigabit (1GB/s)

Web Page and File Server – Windows 2008 (32-bit)
The Web and File server was not benchmarked directly, but served the web pages and files to the endpoint
machine during performance testing.
CPU:
Video Card:
Motherboard:
RAM:
HDD:
Network:

Dual Xeon’s 3.2Ghz
Quadro NVS 280 PCI-E
HP 08B4h
2GB Registered ECC Infineon RAM
30GB SCSI 10K, 600GB SATA
Gigabit (1GB/s)

Management Console VM Server – Windows 7 (64-bit)
The server was not benchmarked directly, but was used as the host for Virtual Machines to which server
components of software was installed. After installation, the Management Console server was used to deploy
endpoint software to clients and to schedule scans.
CPU:
Video Card:
Motherboard:
RAM:
HDD:
Network:

AMD Phenom II x4 940 (Quad Core)
ASUS GeForce 9400GT
Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P
16GB PC3-10600 1333MHz DDR3 Memory
Western Digital Caviar Green WD10EADS 1TB Serial ATA-II
Gigabit (1GB/s)

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Appendix 2 – Methodology Description
Benchmark 1 – Word Document Launch and Open TimeThe average launch time of Word interface was taken using AppTimer (v1.0.1008). This includes the time tolaunch the Word 2007 application and open a 10MB document. This test was practically identical to the User
Interface launch time test. For each product tested, we obtained a total of fifteen samples from five sets ofthree Word launches, with a reboot before each set to clear caching effects by the operating system. Whencompiling the results the first of each set was separated out so that there was a set of values for the initiallaunch after reboot and a set for subsequent launches.
We have averaged the subsequent launch times to obtain an average subsequent launch time. Our final result
for this test is an average of the subsequent launch average and the initial launch time.
AppTimer is publically available from the PassMark Website.

Benchmark 2 – Internet Explorer Launch TimeThe average launch time of Internet Explorer interface was taken using AppTimer. For each product tested, we
obtained a total of fifteen samples from five sets of three Internet Explorer launches, with a reboot before
each set to clear caching effects by the operating system. When compiling the results the first of each set was
separated out so that there was a set of values for the initial launch after reboot and a set for subsequent
launches.
For this test, we have used Internet Explorer 8 (Version 8.0.6001.18783) as our test browser.
We have averaged the subsequent launch times to obtain an average subsequent launch time. Our final result
for this test is an average of the subsequent launch average and the initial launch time.

Benchmark 3 – Boot Time
PassMark Software uses tools available from the Windows Performance Toolkit version 4.6 (as part of theMicrosoft Windows 7 SDK obtainable from the Microsoft Website) with a view to obtaining more precise andconsistent boot time results on the Windows 7 platform.
The boot process is first optimized with xbootmgr.exe using the command “xbootmgr.exe -trace boot –prepSystem” which prepares the system for the test over six optimization boots. The boot traces obtained
from the optimization process are discarded.
After boot optimization, the benchmark is conducted using the command "xbootmgr.exe -trace boot -numruns
5”. This command boots the system five times in succession, taking detailed boot traces for each boot cycle.
Finally, a post-processing tool was used to parse the boot traces and obtain the BootTimeViaPostBoot value.
This value reflects the amount of time it takes the system to complete all (and only) boot time processes. Our
final result is an average of five boot traces.

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Benchmark 4 – On-Demand Scan Time
On-Demand Scan Time measures the amount time it took for each endpoint product to scan a set of sample
files from the right-click context menu in Windows Explorer. The sample used was identical in all cases andcontained a mixture of system files and Office files. In total there were 8502 files whose combined size was
5.42 GB. Most of these files come from the Windows system folders. As the file types can influence scanningspeed, the breakdown of the main file types, file numbers and total sizes of the files in the sample set is given
here.
.avi
.dll
.exe
.gif
.doc
.docx

247
773
730
681
160
267

1024MB
25MB
198MB
63MB
60MB
81MB

.jpg
.mp3
.png
.ppt
.sys
.wav

2904
333
451
97
501
430

318MB
2048MB
27MB
148MB
80MB
260MB

.wma
.xls
.zip

585
329
14

925MB
126MB
177MB

Where possible this scan was run without launching the product’s user interface, by right-clicking the test folder
and choosing the “Scan Now” option, though some products required entering the UI to scan a folder. To record
the scan time, we have used product’s built-in scan timer or reporting system. Where this was not possible, scantimes were taken manually with a stopwatch.
For each product, five samples were taken with the machine rebooted before each sample to clear any cachingeffects by the operating systems. Our final result was calculated as an average of five scans, with each scan
having equal weighting.

Benchmark 5 – Scheduled Scan Time
The data set used was a copy of the same files that the On Demand Scan Time metric (above) used, but the scanis started via a schedule from user interface. Where this option is not available the scan is scheduled from the
management console (where possible). Our final result was calculated as an average of five scans, with each scan
having equal weighting.

Benchmark 6 – CPU Usage – Scan Time
CPUAvg is a command-line tool which samples the amount of CPU load approximately two times per second.
From this, CPUAvg calculates and displays the average CPU load for the interval of time for which it has been
active.
For this metric, CPUAvg was used to measure the CPU load on average (as a percentage) by the system while theScan Time test was being conducted. The final result was calculated as an average five sets of thirty CPU loadsamples.

Benchmark 7 – Browse TimeWe used a script in conjunction with HTTPWatch (Basic Edition, version 6.1) to record the amount of time ittakes for a set of 106 ‘popular’ websites to load consecutively from a local server. This script feeds a list of URLs
into HTTPWatch, which instructs the browser to load pages in sequence and monitors the amount of time ittakes for the browser to load all items on one page.
For this test, we have used Internet Explorer 8 (Version 8.0.6001.18783) as our browser.
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The set of websites used in this test include front pages of high traffic pages. This includes shopping, social,news, finance and reference websites.
The Browse Time test is executed five times and our final result is an average of these five samples. The local
server is restarted between different products and one initial ‘test’ run is conducted

Benchmarks 8 – File Copy, Move and Delete
This test measures the amount of time required for the system to copy, move and delete samples of files invarious file formats. This sample was made up of 809 files over 683,410,115 bytes and can be categorized as
documents [28% of total], media files [60% of total] and PE files (i.e. System Files) [12% of total].
This test was conducted five times to obtain the average time to copy, move and delete the sample files, withthe test machine rebooted between each sample to remove potential caching effects.

Benchmark 9 – File Compression and Decompression
This test measured the amount of time required to compress and decompress a sample set of files. For this test,
we used a subset of the media and documents files used in the File Copy, Move and Delete benchmark.
CommandTimer.exe recorded the amount of time required for 7zip.exe to compress the files into a *.zip andsubsequently decompress the created *.zip file.
This subset comprised 404 files over 277,346,661 bytes. The breakdown of the file types, file numbers and total
sizes of the files in the sample set is shown in the following table:
File format

Category

NumberSize (bytes)

DOC

Documents

830,450,176

DOCX

Documents

4

13,522,409

PPT

Documents

3

5,769,216

PPTX

Documents

3

4,146,421

XLS

Documents

4

2,660,352

XLSX

Documents

4

1,426,054

JPG

Media

351

31,375,259

GIF

Media

6

148,182

MOV

Media

7

57,360,371

RM

Media

1

5,658,646

AVI

Media

8

78,703,408

WMV

Media

5

46,126,167

Total

404

277,346,661

This test was conducted five times to obtain the average file compression and decompression speed, with thetest machine rebooted between each sample to remove potential caching effects.

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Benchmark 10 – File Write, Open and Close
This benchmark was derived from Oli Warner’s File I/O test at http://www.thepcspy.com (please see Reference#1: What Really Slows Windows Down).
For this test, we developed OpenClose.exe, an application that looped writing a small file to disk, then opening
and closing that file. CommandTimer.exe was used to time how long the process took to complete 180,000
cycles.
This test was conducted five times to obtain the average file writing, opening and closing speed, with the test
machine rebooted between each sample to remove potential caching effects.

Benchmark 11 – Memory Usage – System Idle
The PerfLog++ utility was used to record process memory usage on the system at boot, and then every minutefor another fifteen minutes after. This was done only once per product and resulted in a total of 15 samples. The
first sample taken at boot is discarded.
The PerfLog++ utility records memory usage of all processes, not just those of the anti-malware product. As aresult of this, an anti-malware product’s processes needed to be isolated from all other running systemprocesses. To isolate relevant process, we used a program called Process Explorer which was run immediately
upon the completion of memory usage logging by PerfLog++. Process Explorer is a Microsoft Windows
Sysinternals software tool which shows a list of all DLL processes currently loaded on the system.
Our final result is calculated as the total sum of Private Bytes used by each process belonging to the endpoint
security software.

Benchmark 12 – Memory Usage – Scan
The PerfLog++ utility was used to record memory usage on the system while a malware scan is in progress.
Please refer to the metric “Memory usage – System Idle” above for a description of the PerfLog++utility and an
explanation of the method by which memory usage is calculated.
As some products cache scan locations, we take reasonable precautions to ensure that the antivirus software
does not scan the C:\ drive at any point before conducting this test. A manual scan on the C:\ drive is initiated at
the same time as the PerfLog++ utility, enabling PerfLog++ to record memory usage for 60 seconds at fivesecond intervals.
Our final result is calculated as the total sum of Private Bytes used by each process belonging to the endpoint
security software during the malware scan.

Benchmark 13 – CPU Usage – System Idle
CPUAvg is a command-line tool which samples the amount of CPU load two times per second. From this,CPUAvg calculates and displays the average CPU load for the interval of time for which it has been active.
For this metric, CPUAvg was used to measure the CPU load on average (as a percentage) during a period ofsystem idle for five minutes. This test is conducted after restarting the endpoint machine and after five minutesof machine idle.

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