Surprised how snappy Norton Antivirus is!

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Berryracer

Platinum Member
Oct 4, 2006
2,779
1
81
Those test results are for MSE 4.1 and Windows 7. Latest version is 4.2 thst comes with Windows 8 final.


EDIT: They did test MSE with Windows 8 but it was with ver 4.0--- that is outdated
no matter what version they will test, it sucks major a$$

with that said though, if you are a smart user and dont go to fishy sites, I love how uninstrusive it is as in, no ads or any other useless browser extensions
 

Matt1970

Lifer
Mar 19, 2007
12,320
3
0
That depends on what you define as "harmful" because their AV suites have been pretty nimble since 2010/11 but their "false positives" detection ratio has been horrible ever since ! They flag nearly every cryptor/packer/obfuscated file as malware & alot of other ad supported programs as suspicious :awe:

False positives is just scratching the surface.

Out of all the computers i have de-virused I would say the biggest chunk have a non renewed trial copy of norton that came pre-installed on the computer. Second most would have to be a fully updated and current version of norton that comes with your dsl/cable subscription. Third place would be no antivirus at all.

Wouldn't ever use norton, even if it made my boot time one second.

I see the same thing here.
 

Nintendesert

Diamond Member
Mar 28, 2010
7,761
5
0
no matter what version they will test, it sucks major a$$

with that said though, if you are a smart user and dont go to fishy sites, I love how uninstrusive it is as in, no ads or any other useless browser extensions




That really is the most important thing though, the user. No amount of AV software can stop a stupid person from doing stupid things and really borking up their computer.

Luckily system restore is pretty decent in most cases. I've seen some people though completely hose their box. :mad:
 

Ketchup

Elite Member
Sep 1, 2002
14,559
248
106
That really is the most important thing though, the user. No amount of AV software can stop a stupid person from doing stupid things and really borking up their computer.

Luckily system restore is pretty decent in most cases. I've seen some people though completely hose their box. :mad:

Such as, if you have a virus on your computer for months, and then try to do a restore. Guess what? It won't help because all your restore points are infected, assuming you can still DO a restore at that point!
 
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Sheep221

Golden Member
Oct 28, 2012
1,843
27
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That really is the most important thing though, the user. No amount of AV software can stop a stupid person from doing stupid things and really borking up their computer.

Luckily system restore is pretty decent in most cases. I've seen some people though completely hose their box. :mad:
It's not that bad right now, the intrusive homepages, browser toolbars and other malware are now much more easily removable via browsers themselves or via windows uninstall screen, at the time XP was still most recent system I remember that intrusive software was almost unable to remove unless you played alot with registry, msconfig and manually deleted its files and terminated opened programs and services.
I remember that few times my bro loaded my computer with so much shit, that I had to format as there was no way to save the system regardless the protection I had on it.
 

Lifted

Diamond Member
Nov 30, 2004
5,748
2
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I am really impressed by how Norton AV have become it was a big resource hog in the past just like McAfee :)

It's much faster than it used to be, but at what cost?

Surprisingly, Symantec's Norton AntiVirus demonstrated the lowest detection rate (before considering false positives), with 91.2 percent detection. Microsoft Security Essentials edged higher, detecting 92 percent of the samples.

If Norton is testing worse than MSE, and Symantec declines to submit Norton for review by av-comapartives.org, I'd be a bit weary about relying on them for protection.
 

R0H1T

Platinum Member
Jan 12, 2013
2,583
164
106
That really is the most important thing though, the user. No amount of AV software can stop a stupid person from doing stupid things and really borking up their computer.

Luckily system restore is pretty decent in most cases. I've seen some people though completely hose their box. :mad:
Not entirely true because stuff like HIPS will prevent your important system files to be modified, then some like AVAST & Comodo run suspicious programs in a sandbox by default preventing further damage !
The real stupid thing to do would be to disable your AV for xyz reasons, aside from this people without an AV aren't any safer from the group you've mentioned because even legitimate sites & ad servers have been compromised so to think that you're safe in realtime, from any number of malware & other nasty stuff out there, without an AV suite doing its job proactively is indeed naive to say the least !
 
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