Symantec Corporation Product Discussion

Per http://www.av-comparatives.org/

The following products were used in the last comparative (with best possible settings):
Look into the online results to determine the exact version number.



On-demand detection rate on February 2006
-NAV...97.61%
-VirusScan...96.41%
-NOD32...97.89%

ProActive Detection of New Samples on May 2006
-NAV...16% (3rd worst)
-VirusScan...30%
-NOD32...58%

Hmmm...I'd say it's a statistical dead heat between the three with On-demand. NOD32 is the clear winner with the Retrospective test. VirusScan is in the middle of the pack. NAV is near the bottom of the food chain (not much better than AVG)!

Again, numbers don't lie.

 

Well i am a big fan of norton products,but i do not suffer from bias and believe that 2004 range was a big diss-appointment.
But,largely my experience with norton products(IS,AV) since 2000 have been very good and its only from last 2-3 years that other companies are getting a thumbs-up.
Norton like Microsoft suffers from bad public image and many a times people i found criticising norton hadn't even used it for some time.

For eg,i met a lot of people at a pc magazine forum criticsing norton,but only a few of them had actually used the latest range of 2006.

I don't find any problem with pc mem usage or browsing speeds or anything else.
Norton isn't a bloatware and many companies like f-secure,trendmicro,panda have these 40mb+ package...
Also,i find that norton is the only suite which constantly updates signatures for ads,firewall rules,anti-spam rules etc...
Most other companies largely concentrate on AV signatures..
Norton's firewall,anti-spyware are one of the best(if not the best) in the market between pc-cillin,kaspersky,mcafee,panda etc etc.

Norton's detection rates are among the best and as furballi pointed out its the best.

Also,the product support is much criticised but in my opinion their knowledge base covers almost 90% of the problems encountered.

Also,norton was one of the first to have "Security Threat" corner which gives analysis of threat emergence of different types of threats.

to sum up i find the 2006 range to be very usable and dependable and i maybe the very few who never had a problem with norton products even in 2004!

 

The overall impression is good, for its simplify and stable.
But you should admit that the software is a little slowly for old computers, especially the newest corporate edition.
As a suit, f-secure and kis are much better than it. The combination of kav, nod32 ,za ,outpost is also better if not considering the antispam funtion.
So the experience user here will not choose the suit, but it is ok for most common users.

 

ha-ha-ha Yes , that's true but may be we should ask why ?

Because these two companies are enormoisly big and popular (everyone have heard them) and people are expecting more(max) from them . If(when) they fail on a test or in-real-life , this immediately makes them bad name.

However , when they do something good , nobody is taking care of this good because , you know , they are big/famous/rich so this is normal

Ah , yes , this is all normal for human's nature (and doesn't apply only for Symantec/Microsoft)

 

Greetings All,

I thought I would update this thread and notify everyone that since formatting my Hard Disk this morning, I've decided to go back to using Eset NOD32 AntiVirus with Webroot Spy Sweeper 5.0.5 as they provide somewhat greater protection than Symantec's Norton products alone, I was beginning to get somewhat irritated with the speed impedement on my system and it was using 600MB of RAM idle which is equal to Microsoft Windows Vista BETA 2. I shouldn't expect this would be the case with following Windows Vista builds but it was a comparison that I thought I would draw on. Incidentally my girlfriend, who is studying Computer Science at University this year is also using Eset NOD32 AntiVirus System and Webroot Spy Sweeper, infact NOD32 protected her system today as her sister and her fiance "accidently" downloaded malware onto her system but thanks to the protection NOD32 provides and the implementation of BlackSpear's settings, each threat was removed instantaneously and wasn't an issue. Lest to say my girlfriend wasn't and isn't amused towards them both.
Although Symantec's products are of a high quality, with Norton GoBack 4.1 being my favourite Symantec product, I feel that I have more control of my system using Eset NOD32 AntiVirus System and I await the release of Version 3.0 with eagerness although I'll wait before upgrading my subscription to the dedicated suite. Please feel free to continue the discussion at will, thank goodness it's mature, not at all what I expected - Wilders' Community is brilliant, you should be very proud Paul.

Regards,

Scott Sutton

 

I've always found Norton products to be effective but very registry invasive. I have forgotten the exact number of registry entries on a windows based OS but I believe it's around 50 or so. If you want to uninstall these programs, make sure you get a good registry cleaner like the ones from Macesoft.

To forego the above, I would rather have Kaspersky on my machine. Just MHO.

SourMilk out

 

proavtive results would be on the bottom of the list in helping me decide on an av. I just don't feel comfortable in the way they are tested in the proactive test. But an av is a personal decision, so everyone for their self in making that choice.

Numbers don't lie but they can be manupilated to show about any result desired. If numbers were infalible or couldn't be manupilated all of the testing sites would have the same testing results and they don't so that should tell you something.

 

Last time I tried Norton was when it's IS came with my Dim. 8300-P4 3.0GHz back in May 2004. When I powered up the system for the first time, it was very sluggish and "clunky". When I clicked on the Norton icon in the systray it would take up to 30 secs before the window would come up. I suspected this might had something to do will all the bloat stuff Dell installs. Then, as I usually do with a new computer, I formated and reinstalled XP. I was amazed at the difference in speed from my old Dim. 4100-P3 800MHz. Then I reinstalled Norton IS and once again the sluggishness was back again. The 8300 felt slower than my old 4100. I uninstalled it (which was a feat in itself since Norton insinuates itself everywhere in your computer like kudzu--southern US citizens knows what that is, lol) and tried McAfee which was on one of Dell's disks that came with the computer. It was even worse! Then I put AVG on for a while and then became a TM beta tester and have been using it ever since.

I remember at the time I read in some forums that some of the older Norton users said that 2002 was the last good version. Of course I have not tried it since then so I can only go by what I read from other's experiences of the newer versions.

 

A high quality AV like NAV SHOULD be able to perform well with ANY TEST, including the PROACTIVE DETECTION test. One should expect much better NAV heuristic when one factors NAV's huge installation footprint and above average memory load. Why waste more HDD space and physical memory when you're not getting a faster AV with better OVERALL detection? Remember what I said about efficient software coding?

Heuristic detection can be very valuable when you access malicious websites. When in doubt, put the file in QUARANTINE! It may not be 100%, but it certaining beats waiting for the NEW AV definition. BTW, Norton is not timely (like KAV and NOD) when it comes to definition update.

I provided the PC World AV tests, but you wanted to use Av-comparatives numbers, so I posted them. Now you're saying that these "numbers don't lie but they can be manupilated to show about any result desired". If you believe that 97.6% is SUPERIOR to 96.4%, then perhaps you need to revisit Statistics 101. There are NO PERFECT tests. With the provided database, a variation of +/- 3% is well within the noise level of most well-controlled scientific experiments. BTW, the PC WORLD tests also support the results in Av-comparatives.

While you declare the 1.2% 'on-demand' advantage between NAV and VirusScan as "superior", you dismiss the 14% 'heuristic' deficit because it does not support your case!

When when ALL ELSE are equal, I would be an IDIOT if I didn't go with the AV with superior ProActive detection.

Perhaps you can provide scientific evidences as to why NAV is better than NOD32 and VirusScan.

 

I don't believe there are any "facts" to backup any assesment when it comes to PC performance..only "opinions" and "perceptions". Both mine...but more importantly IMO (at least...more importantly as far as what actually counts for me)...the views of my clients.

I will agree...their AV products have "lightened up" over the past couple of versions. IMO they still have a bit of "lightening up to do" to catch up with some other products that IMO lead this area, which in prior reply I'm purposefully staying away from mentioning other products...not going to get into a direct comparison battle here...only focusing on observations about Symantec.

Just because I don't resell them anymore as a VAR, doesn't meant I don't still work on them (as I still do with many other brands of AV products..AVG, Kapersky, Trend Micro, CAI, Sophos, etc etc)...I still have many clients that use their products (I'm working on switching them! ) In another week or two...I have another big network upgrade from CE 9 to the latest..I'm not looking forward to it.

It ain't jealousy...else I'd hop in the "Trendy bash Microsoft" threads that are so popular around here. Not going to bash something that makes me money..that I make my decent living from.

 

Now let me make something clear here, I am not useing symantec products at this time. I am useing a much lighter and smaller av. I usually defend norton av simply because there is a lot of bashing of the product and it really doesn't deserve it. Just because a cadillac is twice as heavy as a corvette does that mean that it isn't any good because it is bigger and not as fast, I don't think so. Nav is a good product and tens of millions of users have it installed and are satisfied with it. Nod32 is an antivirus I wouldn't use at all, I have had it installed on three different computers and with three different versions and had nothing but problems with it. But does that make nod a piece of junk? of course not. All it means is that I have something installed that conflicts with nod. The same goes for other people that try Norton, it is not going to work for everyone. But with the size of their user base the complaints that I have heard of or seen are a very small percentage of the installs of norton in the world.

 

I never said that NAV was worthless as an AV. However, why stick with $25 'AOL' dial-up when you can switch to 'AT&T' DSL for $13?

Microsoft One Care comes with an AV, FW, and licenses for 3 PCs for less than $40. SYMC is living on past glory. Why should the average user stick with a "bigger" and "slower" AV like NAV when its competitors have similar detection capability?

A free AV is perfectly adequate for the average PC users. Why? Because the majority of mainstream websites and mail servers are secured with an AV scanner.

AV vendors thrive on fear. Your best defense is to use common sense when you're connected to the internet. You don't want a stranger to gain access to your home, so why allow others to pull data from your HDD? Free software, free porn, free virus, too. Delete all e-mails from unknown origin.

You would think that the law of probability is not on my side since I do not use a real-time AV scanner. Fortunately, I'm still bug-free after 10 years of .net.