Symantec Antivirus Product Review
Norton Antivirus
Norton Antivirus is one of the best known brands in the Antivirus Industry. Founded by Peter Norton the company quickly established a reputation as a major player with a capable and efficient range of products. They pioneered a lot of the features that are now standard in most antivirus programs - definition updates, automatic and manual scans, quarantine infected files in a safe area and so on.
Now part of the Symantec Group they have continued to develop their Antivirus solutions and have an innovative range of products for home and business users.
Symantec Product Range
The current PC product range includes Norton Antivirus 2009, Norton Internet Security 2009 and Norton 360 Version 3.
MAC Antivirus
As one of the leading Security Software companies in the world, Symantec are aware of increasing threats to MAC computers from amlicious software. The first 'in-the-wild' MAC virus was detected in February 2006
and was called OSX/Leap-A Worm.
Newer malicious programs aimed at the Macintosh platform are increasing in sophistication and it is only a matter of time before something extremely malicious sweeps across the MAC world. Norton AntiVirus for MAC is the leading MAC antivirus program available today. Overview of Symantec PC Antivirus Products
The Norton Antivirus range includes the basic Antivirus program, an Internet Security package with more features and the Norton 360 package which offers on-line data backup facilities. The comparison table below shows the main features included in each package. 
We tested the Norton Internet Security 2009 package for this review.
Installation
Download and installation was easy and should not present novice computer users with any problems. At 15 days the free trial is shorter than most competitors (30 days, typical), but it gives enough time to try the program and decide whether to purchase the full version or not. At 64MB (Norton Internet Security) the installation file is not small, but downloads quite rapidly.
The installation itself was quite fast and the PC needed to be restarted afterwards. The first time the PC starts after installation the program downloads the latest updates and prompts for a full system scan.
Ease of Use
The Norton range of products is easy for the novice computer user to set up, but there are also advanced options that a system administrator can tweak some of the settings if required.
Shown below is the main menu screen for the Norton Internet Security package. It shows a clear, uncluttered summary of the system status and it is obvious where to find the program controls - performing updates, setting configuration options and running scans.
When a scan is taking place there is a progress indicator, the file being scanned is listed and any alerts are displayed:
Once the scan completes you are given the option to quarantine or delete infected files.
Effectiveness
Effectively deals with known virus threats and regularly performs well in independent tests. All versions now include a spyware/ adware scanner, but this is less effective than the virus scanner and performs less well than many competitors.
Memory and processor usage has always been quite high with Norton products, but they have taken steps to address this with the 2009 editions and there is a marked improvement. It might slow down older computers slightly, but should not be noticeable on newer ones. Improvements have also been made to the automatic update system. Rather than waiting a week to download updates there is now the pulse update system which allows the program to update definitions every 5 - 15 minutes.
Positive Points
- One of the leading brands in the industry with a wealth of experience in the fight against malware
- Frequent updates
- Licence allows use on up to 3 PCs
Negative Points
- Heavier on system resources than competitors and could cause slow performance on older computers
- Average performance of spyware/ adware scanner
Conclusion
The Internet Security version is fully featured and is a marked improvement on previous versions. A good all round solution from one of the leading brands in the industry.
It is important that you install an effective defence against malware today. If you like the features Symantec offer with the Norton Antivirus range of products, download and install today by clicking on the following links:
Fully functional 15-day free trials of Norton Antivirus and Norton Internet Security are available (see on-line shop options).
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