I'm checking out ESET Cybersecurity for Mac. Will it mess with my music apps?

I'm gonna kick the tires on ESET Cybersecurity for Mac. Some of the freelance work I do requires that I have security software installed, to protect my clients from anything I might pick up and pass along. (Yep, there are innumerable posts elsewhere about whether this even matters on a Mac, so I'm not getting into that here. Besides, I choose to think of my clients first. :-)  )

Here's what I'll be checking out:

• Does it affect my DAW's performance? I use Logic Pro.
• Does it affect my live performance rig? I use a combination of LiSa (www.steim.nl), JunXion (also STEIM), Max (www.cycling74.com), and occasionally MainStage.
• Does it slow down performance in general? E.g. do applications launch or quit more slowly? are graphics sluggish? and so forth.

Here are some things that give me hope: 

• The install is only about 34MB. (It might be different for the full version.)
• ESET swears that it's fast and lightweight and works "quietly in the background."

We shall see.


Here's an update: This past Sunday, July 10, I had my monthly rehearsal with Out of Context. With that band, my MacBook gets put through some paces:

• I'm running a Max patch that I designed to reconfigure how my now-vintage v1 Oxygen8 works, because I'm not crazy about its hardware preset switches; this Max patch is fairly lightweight 
• I'm also running JunXion (I use the ancient version 1.x), which turns my joystick into a fierce MIDI controller, very fun for live performance
• I have mics on every other member of the band (upright bass, cello, viola, cornet, trombone, kit, and more), all coming into my MacBook via a v1 MOTU 828 interface, and into MainStage for basic compression on each input
• MainStage sends everything on discrete channels through Soundflower 16ch, and on to LiSa (another incredible STEIM product for live-sampling).

So at any given time, in performance, I'm doing some combination of the following:

• playing back multiple stereo samples and manipulating them real-time 
• for example, LiSa allows scrubbing through its audio buffer as well as pattern-based jumping around within the buffer, not just playing back static samples. My joystick, as a result, is set up so that moving side to side scrubs back and forth through the buffer; twisting increases or decreases the sample length; and forward/back controls pitch bend. 
• other controls I've mapped from my Oxy8's knobs include stutter-type playback, again real-time
• grabbing one or more new samples from the instrumentalists.

I'll probably run down my setup for Out of Context in more detail at some point. My point here is that the MacBook is busy. So what better test of security software running in the background?

The short version, and I suppose the only necessary version, is that I didn't so much as notice it. There was no perceptible difference in my MacBook's performance during a 3-hour rehearsal doing the things I just described, with ESET Security running in the background. I would think that's a reasonable endorsement.


Now, because I compose and self-produce on my own most of the time, it's quite rare for me to record multiple tracks simultaneously in a traditional studio setting. I'm curious if anyone out there has experiences with ESET along these lines.


I feel so secure now.