NIS 2010 PCMag.com review

Discussion in 'other anti-virus software' started by Victek, Sep 16, 2009.

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  1. TonyW

    TonyW Registered Member

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    We may as well wish everyone the best of luck with whatever anti-malware product they use. There's no point in singling out Norton. It's kinda relative whether they'll be hit by a virus and alerted by the vendor that has detection for it dependent on what they've been doing online. We see it all too often. This is, of course, ignoring the fact other technologies these vendors may utilise can come into play to prevent such infections in addition to signatures.

    The on-demand tests we see are testing signature detection alone. The retrospective tests are just as important to look at, and the AV-C's follow-up to this latest crop of tests in December should be just as interesting. Perhaps more so.
     
  2. zfactor

    zfactor Registered Member

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    nis 2010 has stopped many rouges so far for me.. it says it was caught by sonar and it was trying to run a malicious program.. i have tested this on every rouge i could find... sonar is very active i am seeing now.. with 2009 i hardly saw it come up with 2010 i see sonar detections a lot now. also if you watch many of mat's reviews MANY av's miss rouges including some of the best out there
     
  3. ASpace

    ASpace Guest

    Yes , they do . This is a Symantec problem , too.

    The fact is that they might not be actually malicious , sometimes require user consent to be installed . It is actually a problem that SafeWeb reported safe site when it isn't safe to purchase from.

    As for the SONAR2 , I agree with you
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 21, 2009
  4. smage

    smage Registered Member

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    Yet by some magical ways, these AVs still do extremely well in AVC and keep winning the VB100 awards!
     
  5. mvdu

    mvdu Registered Member

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    I tried it for a little while. The pulse updates are nice, and had no performance problems. However, it would mark some files as safe which were not. And Sonar worked better in my experience for non-rogues that made more system changes.

    Overall, pretty nice, but I think I'll go for something less expensive or for something I have a license for.
     
  6. kinwolf

    kinwolf Registered Member

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    There is nothing magical about it. It can be explained by the fact that VB doesn't put rogue applications in their test, only virus/trojans and the such. A rogue apps doesn't qualify as any of those.

    I guess it might be the same with AV-C. (not sure for AV-C)

    Also, rogue apps are still few, so even if a test like AV-C include them, they would be but 0,01% of the total sample base.
     
  7. smage

    smage Registered Member

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    Ok thanks for the explanation.
     
  8. Lohnegrin

    Lohnegrin Registered Member

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    Hi everybody,

    I stumbled across this thread and after reading it all I thought I'd share my opinion and experience with NIS 2010 so far.

    I never been a Symantec fan, actually I pretty much bashed their products in every chance I got because of lets say problematic past experience with their older products. But starting from the release of NIS 2009 I started to read some positive feedback from various sources so I started to keep track of the product updates and user reviews and it seemed that Symantec was actually getting things right after all this time. Then a while ago I found out about the release of NIS 2010 and was very intrigued and starting poking around and also found even better feedback from users and then read the PCMag review and then I decided that I had to test it for myself and see what's the fuzz all about.

    I installed it on 2 low-end PCs (Celeron D/Pentium 4 with 512/1024 MB RAM respectively).

    The setup was easy, perhaps way too easy for my taste, sure would've liked more options to exclude certain modules for instance, but it's no big deal.

    The interface is pretty clean, and easy to understand/navigate, although the settings can seems a bit odd for someone who didn't use Symantec products in a while (like me :rolleyes: ).

    I can confirm that NIS 2010 is NOT a resource hog, on the contrary it's actually pretty light even on these old PCs, hell even my Firefox consumes more resources than this :argh:

    Now, regarding the security, NIS anti-virus engine/module may not be the best, products like Avira or NOD32 probably are better, that being said it's still offer pretty good detection, but as someone once said that the era of signature-based detection is fading because of the sdvancement of new threats that are constantly changing, and here is where NIS 2010 starts to shine, the combination of the anti-virus, SONAR2, and Insight modules makes it a very capable product in detecting new threats. Now, that doesn't mean it's perfect but it's most certainly an excellent product.

    I hope you find this mini-review helpful and although I can't guarantee that it's 100% accurate (after all it's only based on my experience) but I do guarantee that it's 100% honest and unbiased.

    ~Yaser (aka Lohengrin)
     
  9. steve1955

    steve1955 Registered Member

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    Norton are affected by the same type of problem that affects Microsoft:-no matter how good a product that they produce some people will always knock it just because it is produced by them!(bit of a no-win situation for them really!)
     
  10. Lohnegrin

    Lohnegrin Registered Member

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    Good point, it's hard to break free of past reputations I guess.
     
  11. icr

    icr Registered Member

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    Well I believe in my own review and it is just coincidence that PCMag's editor's choice is same as the suite that I am using.

    As far as norton is concerned in fighting with rouges it does a good job I tested some rogues(secure warrier,AV 2010....) and it blocked them accessing the internet successfully.

    And come on people we are not that dumb that cannot differentiate between a fake application and the real one. Your security product will only warn you rest depends on which option you click with your mouse Install or Cancel.
     
  12. Lohnegrin

    Lohnegrin Registered Member

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    So true, some people fail to realize that the first line of defense in fighting malware in general should always be your BRAIN!
     
  13. ASpace

    ASpace Guest

    Earlier today I tested two AVs against 7 new variants of rogue applications. They both missed them because they were very fresh rogues . However , installing a rogue is not an easy task . Additionally , removing them ( including all these 7 I tried) is generally not a hard task . Installing a rogue requires a user consent most times . Installing on Vista/7 is even harder (note that UAC and Windows Defender will notify twice about admin privilages , different changes that occur...) . The web sites I got the rogues from are tricky but one must be a complete dull to trust even a single word.
     
  14. zfactor

    zfactor Registered Member

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    nis2010 just got rid of pcmightymax on a customers system...
     
  15. EliteKiller

    EliteKiller Registered Member

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    How well does NIS2010 deal with CLB rootkits? ;)
     
  16. ASpace

    ASpace Guest

    Is this a regular question or ... " ;) "
     
  17. Defcon

    Defcon Registered Member

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    Is NIS 2010 (or the regular antivirus) easy to uninstall, does it leave behind traces?
     
  18. norky

    norky Registered Member

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    Easy to uninstall, doesn't leave anything behind. Maybe a folder or two but that's about it.
     
  19. firzen771

    firzen771 Registered Member

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    well thats good, norton used to be notorious for being harder to get rid of than most malware :D
     
  20. DVD+R

    DVD+R Registered Member

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    Is there really any need for the extra balony thats provided in this suite? I mean who the heck cares about norton processes, and cpu monitoring etc.., If its catching trojans worms and viruses, does it really matter o_O
     
  21. icr

    icr Registered Member

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    According to the specs of your computer shown in your signature yours one is a beast!! I don't think it will cause any slowdown even you use the most heaviest suite and for norton, it catches fairly good amount of viruses,worms.....
     
  22. Lohnegrin

    Lohnegrin Registered Member

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    I'm afraid it's no longer that simple, the "extra balony" you're talking about is EXACTLY what helps catch new malware that the signatures didn't caught up with yet!
     
  23. ASpace

    ASpace Guest


    This all "extra balony" is not necessary for the protection . It is there to help the company get out of the hole they used to be in . They must show the public - "hey , we are renewed , we are no longer that resourse hog we used to be"
     
  24. Victek

    Victek Registered Member

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    Can you be more specific about what constitutes "extra balony"? :) I agree that the CPU monitoring applet is irrelevant, but most of what I see in the suite seems appropriate. If asked I think most of us would say that the ability to detect and block/remove malware is the only thing that really matters, yet many of us also get excited about GUI upgrades, tray icons, etc. It doesn't hurt that Norton 2010 is nice to look at (IMHO).
     
  25. virtumonde

    virtumonde Registered Member

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    PC Mag is always generous with Norton,u can see all of their reviews to the years.
    It happened that 2009 ,and probably 2010 line of products,really are what described,excellent software on most computers,ease of use -install and forget,low system footprint,some advanced features to tweak for those who know and want especially in the suite and good detection.
    With Norton Antivirus 2010 after i uninstalled it 'on xp i've got chkdsk running so i won't be using again to soon.
     
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