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dead after 9/29 Norton Antivirus 2008 - 3 user - far @buy.com

L

LongTimePCUser

Senior member
Buy.com sells the 3 user version for $50.

They offer a $30 debit card "rebate" for buying it (requires mail in upc code) and a $20 upgrader's rebate (requires "proof of purchase" from box and proof of ownership of previous antivirus software). Only until 9/29/2007.

NAV 2008 @buy.com

One pre-review at cnet said that it was bloatware but take that with some skepticism since they also said that there was no 3-user package.

What do you think of NAV vs. other antivirus software? What's best now?

 
Today's PSA from your friend, JasonCoder:

AV software is DEAD. Dr. Anton Chuvakin sums it up great: "Running it can be considered a weak excuse for defense-in-depth, but in about the same sense as wearing an extra shirt provides "another security layer" in a gun fight..."

What pushes it over from pointless to absurd is the Horrible perf hit from running this bloatware. Just don't run as an admin. Sometimes easier said than done but with Vista enforcing this (even for games), software will get much better about it. And yes, you can get your 7 year old game to still run by configuring it and only it to run as an admin.

Have any linux or mac geek friends? Ask them why they don't run AV. If you're paranoid about security on your box the only real way is probably a HIPS based approach.
 
Interesting post. But is it relevant to the free after rebate deal that I posted?

Also, go back and look at the reader's comments on the blog you refferenced. I agree that the blog and the responder's comments make for good, thought provoking, reading. But, 70% or so disagree with the blog as written. Running your PC "naked" as suggested to get best performance is an interesting idea. Similar to going outside naked in the winter time. Not for everyone. The writer's suggestion that you can avoid bad things happening by not running as an admin may not be practical unless you rarely install new software.

Look at the numbers in the table of measured performance hits. Norton Internet Security 2007 takes a 45% boot hit , an 8% cpu hit and maybe a 1515% disk hit. In Vista, I rarely reboot so the extra 20 seconds does not matter. You can barely notice an 8% cpu hit. In fact, if you have a dual core cpu, the 8% will be taken by the second cpu and you won't notice at all. The 1515% disk hit sounds bad, but that only happens during heavy duty disk i/o. That probably means it increases loading a program by 5 - 10 seconds. Not significant. Also, these hit numbers refer to the entire Norton Suite. I posted a deal for the antivirus only. That has much less overhead than the compete suite.

Originally posted by: JasonCoder

What pushes it over from pointless to absurd is the Horrible perf hit from running this bloatware. Just don't run as an admin. Sometimes easier said than done but with Vista enforcing this (even for games), software will get much better about it. And yes, you can get your 7 year old game to still run by configuring it and only it to run as an admin.
q]
Click to expand...
 
Sounds like you're comfortable with an 8% cpu hit and 1515% disk hit for a 33% average detection rate. In your analogy this would be you outside in winter with 1/3 of your clothes on when you think you have them all on.

For installing software: personally I run with UAC on and get prompted continuously when installing software. If you don't run as an admin you can enter admin credentials when necessary. Pain in the ass? Yes. Better than perf hits from crapware for the illusion of security? Yes.
 
I gave up on NAV several versions/years ago because it was becoming such bloatware. Everything I've read or heard since then has indicated that the bloat trend has continued and gotten worse.

While I haven't yet read any specific about 2008 NAV, at this stage I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole until they drastically change their ways.

BTW, most people can get free antivirus suites from their internet provider-Comcast has McAfee, ATT DSL has CA Associates. No need to mess with rebates or expenditures.
 
Thump553,
Go back and look at JasonCoder's link.
Several years ago Norton Antivirus had a huge performance overhead. This was a case of an antivirus behavior being indistinguisable from a virus.

They drastically changed their ways in 2007.
Norton 2007 had much less overhead hit than Norton 2006. 8% vs. 20%. And that is for the entire internet securiy suite. The antivirus alone has a much lower performance hit and probably has all the protection you need.

As for McAfee look here: av-comparatives.org. They have a 93% detect rate. The best products are 98 - 99%. Also, go back to JasonCoder's link. McAfee Enterprise has a 20% cpu performance hit.

Kasparsky gets good reviews, but people are reporting that it updates the ntfs file system when it does a full scan in a way that seriously alters the behvior of boot time chkdsk. In some cases people report that chkdsk can't run to completion. kaspersky problem.. Chkdsk has saved my system several times from hardware / software problems that corrupted my hard drive. That doesn't seem to happen anymore with Vista, but I wouldn't want to give up chkdsk as a last resort tool to save all my data and program settings.


Originally posted by: Thump553
I gave up on NAV several versions/years ago because it was becoming such bloatware. Everything I've read or heard since then has indicated that the bloat trend has continued and gotten worse.

While I haven't yet read any specific about 2008 NAV, at this stage I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole until they drastically change their ways.

BTW, most people can get free antivirus suites from their internet provider-Comcast has McAfee, ATT DSL has CA Associates. No need to mess with rebates or expenditures.
Click to expand...

 
Seems it's all a moot point now, as this deal looks to be dead. Buy.com isn't selling it themselves now, just acting as dealer for other sellers, who are NOT giving the rebates. Comes out to ~$58 shipped now.
 
Yes, moot point on the sale, not so much on the topic of the usefulness of different security measures. But that would be for the security forum. If I ever get off my butt I may start a thread up over there.
 
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