Norton Antivirus - opinion or fact that many virus trick Norton Antivirus?

[nine9s]

I have had Norton Antivirus for almost a year. I am deciding whether to renew or not.

First, I have been happy with it. Unlike most of the complaints against it, I actually find it very light on resources (I see no signs of it all - from my experience, it is same as Microsoft Essentials in no signs of resources usage and less resource useage than Free Avast.) For example, I have it on two computers, and the older computer is generally slow in everything it does, yet Norton Antiviurs does not tax it.

My concern is that many people on this forum state that many viruses are designed to get around Norton Antivirus since it is so popular, therefore Norton Antivirus causes more risk - I even heard the Geek Speak guys on NPR voice that opinion too. But labs like AV Tests, and Dennis Technology and AV Comparatives (2011-previously until Norton pulled out for disagreements on testing done by AV Comparatives) and others testing sites, all show very high detection and blocking results for Norton Antiviurs with it having equal results to Kaspersky and Bitdefender - those being the big three above everyone else.

Also, about every other week I use MalewareBytes scan program and has not found anything wrong. And every few months I scan with TrendMicro's Housecall online scanner as well as Avira boot CD scan, and neither finds anything wrong (although Avira did once but when I uploaded the two files, that it flagged and both temporary data, to Virus Total, a site that scans the file with 25+ antivirus programs, it found nothing wrong and showed that many users had analyzed the same files recently, so both were likely false positives.)

Is that concern (many viruses are designed and able to trick Norton Antivirus) just opinion or is it sound and grounded in actually testing/experiences? If the latter, would someone point to tests etc. that have demonstrated that Norton lets more viruses through?

Thanks for any help.

 

[jishnub]

Hi

It is not true norton offers good detection rate and decent protection. Only draw back is that it slows down the system .It is not light on resources.

http://anti-virus-software-review.toptenreviews.com/norton-review.html

Then second thing about renewing Norton Antivirus Subscription. Well why you need a paid antivirus when there are lot of great free antivirus is available.

http://anti-virus-software-review.toptenreviews.com/norton-review.html

 

[nine9s]

Hi

It is not true norton offers good detection rate and decent protection. Only draw back is that it slows down the system .It is not light on resources.

http://anti-virus-software-review.toptenreviews.com/norton-review.html

Then second thing about renewing Norton Antivirus Subscription. Well why you need a paid antivirus when there are lot of great free antivirus is available.

http://anti-virus-software-review.toptenreviews.com/norton-review.html

Thanks. I used Avast free for years but last year with its version update, it sandboxed all files - blue screen city. It took them 2 days or so to fix it. It did this to many people (their forum exploded with complaints.) Luckily, it only sandboxed stuff (no quarantine nor deletion like Bitdefender did in 2010), so I was able to go to Safe Mode and uninstall Avast then everything was fine. That is when I switched to Norton.

 

[Spades45]

if Norton was any good at removing viruses it would be able to effectively remove itself from your system. So far it has proved useless in this regard.

 

[R0H1T]

Thanks. I used Avast free for years but last year with its version update, it sandboxed all files - blue screen city. It took them 2 days or so to fix it. It did this to many people (their forum exploded with complaints.) Luckily, it only sandboxed stuff (no quarantine nor deletion like Bitdefender did in 2010), so I was able to go to Safe Mode and uninstall Avast then everything was fine. That is when I switched to Norton.

Norton is mainly good for folks that don't know what they're doing, sorry if I sound like a douche, it aggressively blocks/quarantines files whilst being downloaded/accessed by users & any suspicious activity is blocked as well. Its light on system resources & has a fairly competent firewall(IS/360 versions) so I'd suggest you continue your subscription or better still upgrade to an integrated IS suite from Norton or any of the other top AV vendors viz ~ AVAST/ESET/KASPERSKY, alternatively try Comodo IS 6 which is free & has all the features you may want in a paid product !

Just to add Norton usually doesn't require much user intervention & hence has more false positives, other than that the top 5 aforementioned AV firms are neck & neck as far as their line of security products are concerned with ESET/NORTON being the fastest & AVAST/KASPERSKY being more feature rich.

 

[KeithP]

Hi

It is not true norton offers good detection rate and decent protection. Only draw back is that it slows down the system .It is not light on resources.

http://anti-virus-software-review.toptenreviews.com/norton-review.html

Then second thing about renewing Norton Antivirus Subscription. Well why you need a paid antivirus when there are lot of great free antivirus is available.

http://anti-virus-software-review.toptenreviews.com/norton-review.html

I wouldn't trust reviews from a site that has links to buy the products.

While Norton wouldn't be my first choice, I think most of the comments in this thread would have been accurate 3-4 years ago but are no longer reflective of their current products. They have been doing a much better job lately.

Software is a second line of defense, your actions are the first line of defense. I use Microsoft Security Essentials and never had a problem. Be sure to check out MechBgon's security page if you haven't already.
http://www.mechbgon.com/build/security2.html

That being said if I were buying a product it would probably be either Kaspersky or Nod32. Kaspersky AV is currently on sale at Frys for free after rebate. Check the rebate's conditions to make sure they apply to you.

http://www.frys.com/product/7233143?...%20date:012513

-KeithP

 

[Ketchup]

The difference between Norton and other AV programs become quite small when you factor in the greater variable - browsing habits. Norton is fine, it is just too sluggish for my taste, offers too many alerts that no one should have to worry about, and as one of the best-selling AV products in the world is a real target for malware.

In my opinion, it's up to you. Browsing habits will dictate what you think you need, and even then there is no guarantee you will be immune to threats, whichever brand you pick.

 

[dyna]

I've used NOD32, Norton, Kaspersky and Avira.

Norton, imho is the best of them.

I invested heavily and gave NOD32 a chance for 4 yrs. It never did a good job despite its favorable reviews. It seemed to be able to detect viruses fairly well but never be able to stop them. It is also on the pricier side.

Kaspersky, I ran the trial and it cut my internet connection speed in half. I tried various settings and it did nothing. I did some research at the time and that seemed to be a common problem. That was a while back so maybe it is no longer an issue.

I never ran Avira on my own computer but installed it on my parents. They constantly got viruses and some times the viruses would disable Avira. Other than that, it seemed to work well.

Now to Norton. Performance wise it seems acceptable, I think as a company they resolved this many years ago. I have yet to have it let a virus through and it does have a good firewall. It does come with add-ons for browsers which I do think lower the stability of the browser but it is somewhat useful. If you do a search on google it will let you know if it is a good/bad or unknown site.

 

[JEDIYoda]

I quit many years ago using anything that was Norton. Way to many false positives....

 

[RompinRaider]

Norton is fine...anyone that says it slows down their pc hasn't used it in over a year and is clueless. It's like asking a question about religion...everyone has their favorite and the rest are losers. Enjoy Norton...it has worked fine for you.

 

[nine9s]

Dennis Labs which seems pretty thorough had Norton and Kaspersky neck and neck (0 compromises on both but Kaspersky blocked all, whereas Norton had ist Insight stop 2 that it initially did not block) in 3rd quarter of 2012, and in its 4th quarter results just posted, it has Norton ahead, with Bitdefender behind both the last two quarters (not sure where it stood before.)

http://www.dennistechnologylabs.com/reports/s/a-m/2012/

4th QTR 2012:

TOTAL ACCURACY RATINGS
Product Total Accuracy Rating Percentage Award
Norton Internet Security 2013 388.5 97% AAA
Kaspersky Internet Security 2013 368 92% AA
ESET Smart Security 5 359.5 90% AA
BitDefender Internet Security 2013 348.9 87% A
Trend Micro Internet Security 2013 340.1 85% A
AVG Internet Security 2013 335.5 84% B
McAfee Internet Security 2013 305.5 76% C
Microsoft Security Essentials 30 8% -

3rd qtr:

Kaspersky Internet Security 2012 390.5 98% AAA
Norton Internet Security 2012 381.5 95% AAA
BitDefender Internet Security 2013 373.75 93% AA
ESET Smart Security 5 369.75 92% AA
Trend Micro Internet Security 2012 322.5 81% B
AVG Internet Security 2012 300.6 75% C
McAfee Internet Security 2012 251.9 63% -
Microsoft Security Essentials 223.5 56% -

 

[mikeymikec]

Products that class cookies as some level of threat (ie. the same wording that the product uses with real malware) IMO are just trying to sell you something by saying "look! I quarantined this ruffian for you!".

Norton and quite a few other paid-for products do this.

Cookies are, in a sense, a threat, but they can't be considered a threat in the same way as normal types of malware. They don't annoy the user, they don't compromise your security and they don't actively do anything. Some cookies are a mild privacy risk at worst. If physical wallets had paid-for security like Norton, they would be going off like the apocalypse because you have a store card in there.

Also, note that you'll pay more for Norton by renewing your subscription than if you go to the shop and buy a new disc. At least, that's the way it is in the UK. IMO, it basically flips the bird at potentially loyal customers.

The other thing that really gets my goat about paid-for security software is how they'll advertise extra features like "identity protection", when they can do nothing of the sort. Verifying a site's SSL certificate does not identity protection make, and modern browsers have had anti-phishing features in for ages. Vendors of such pieces of security software are just playing on the general ignorance of what identity protection might actually involve.

Norton is fine...anyone that says it slows down their pc hasn't used it in over a year and is clueless. It's like asking a question about religion...everyone has their favorite and the rest are losers. Enjoy Norton...it has worked fine for you.

I've seen recent versions of Norton Anti-Virus work without visibly slowing down the system (ie. the systems start and work perfectly quickly), but in my recent experiences NIS/360 still do slow things down noticeably.

MSE all the way. Avast free isn't too bad either, just switch off the sandboxing because it is useless.

I always check out this website before buying anti-virus software <spam removed - Admin DrPizza> My personal favourite is AVG because it does what it says and i like the fact that it's as unobtrusive as possible.

What, you mean like "ooh, are you sure you wouldn't like the paid version?" or "ah, you have the paid version, are you sure you don't also want PC Tune Up?".