Gamers need antivirus protection without performance sacrifice. Many antivirus products now include dedicated “Game Mode” features that suppress notifications and free up resources during gaming sessions. Here’s the comparison for 2025.

Best Game Mode Features

1. BullGuard Premium – Game Booster redirects CPU power to games (9.0/10)
2. Kaspersky – Game Mode suspends scans and notifications (9.2/10)
3. Norton – Silent Mode suppresses all alerts (9.4/10)
4. Avast – Game Mode automatically detects full-screen apps (8.7/10)
5. ESET – Gamer Mode for unobtrusive protection (9.0/10)

What Game Mode Does

• Suppresses all pop-ups and notifications
• Pauses scheduled scans
• Prioritizes CPU resources for games
• Sometimes improves FPS slightly
• Maintains firewall protection

For Competitive Gamers

If even 1ms of latency matters, consider using Windows Defender’s built-in Gaming mode and a hardware firewall router, which provides security with zero software latency.