Member Avatar for geoss

Hi,
My Nod 32 free trial run us almost up. Everytime I run it, it shows around 63000 files scanned. But if I do Panda online active scan it says it has scanned 100,000+ files. How is this so? No viruses showed up, but isn't it better if more files are scanned. I have to buy some anti virus program, and want low resource usage.
Thanks
George

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by dlh6213

Dani AI

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Different scanners report different totals for perfectly normal reasons. As noticed, two products can give very different "files scanned" numbers while both return a clean report. A higher count alone does not automatically mean better protection; what matters is what was actually inspected and how the engine detects threats.

Common causes of the discrepancy:

  • Some engines unpack archives and count each member file; others count the archive as one item. Archive depth and maximum unpack size make a big difference.
  • Scanners can include or skip system areas (Restore points, compressed installer caches, email stores, browser caches) and network drives.
  • Settings like "only scan known executable extensions", "follow NTFS junctions/symlinks", or exclusions will reduce the count.
  • Online scanners and on-demand tools may include temporary extracted files or additional object types in their tally; installed real-time products often optimise to avoid repeatedly scanning unchanged files.

Practical steps to compare and diagnose:

  1. Configure both tools to the same scope (C: drive, include hidden/system files, enable archive scanning with comparable max depth/size) and rerun the scans.
  2. Create a controlled test (a zip with several small files) to see how each engine reports counts; use the EICAR test file if you want to confirm detection without risk.
  3. Inspect the scan logs — good logs show which folders and file types were scanned and where files were skipped.
  4. If low resource use is a priority, measure CPU and memory during idle and during a scan (Task Manager/Resource Monitor) and try resident protection settings or cloud-assisted options.

As suggested, deeper scans will enumerate more files; as implied, reputation and test results matter. Choose a product by recent independent detection and performance tests, then validate on your own machine and settings rather than by raw file counts alone.

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Member Avatar for caperjack

Hi,check the spyware tools link in my signature for a good free virus tool ,AVG.
also the file amount difference is because one scan deeper into you file system just to be sure !!! yes its better to scan deeper and more files .

Member Avatar for dlh6213

I haven't used Nod32 myself yet, but it's consistantly rated above all the others. Perhaps the 'paid-for' version has more options for deeper scanning?

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