Norton Internet Security 2008 on Vista 64, My Impressions

For those planning to go to Vista 64 someday, I wanted to give my impressions on the NIS2008 product.

As background, I have Vista Ultimate 64 on a home-built machine, using IE 7 for my browser (customized security settings) and a Standard Account for my day-to-day stuff.

I installed the 14 day trial on my machine, and after the trial decided to buy it. Here's what I found so far:

The BAD:
- Right click scanning (context menu scan) is not working on the Standard nor the Admin accounts. You can still go into NIS and run a scan on a single file, but obviously right click scanning is a lot less keystrokes. I'm working with support to try and figure this out, which leads me to...
- Norton Support. Symantec possibly has the worst offshore support I've ever seen for a product. They would improve their customer service score tenfold by just shutting down this sham of an operation, and opening a message board so users can work with one another. It took 3 back-and-forth emails (taking 1-2 days each for a response) to even explain the issue I'm dealing with. I'm taking wagers that I'll be told to reinstall in the next couple days, giving 4:1 odds...
- Standard User functionality. A Standard User can run scans, schedule scans, and view reports, as well as use Identify Safe. If you want to change any settings or use the Network mapping functionality, you need to be an Administrator. This one isn't too bad.
- Identity Safe / Phishing Protection - Note these features are only available using the 32 bit Internet Explorer browser. While Vista defaults users to this one, it would have been nice to make them available for 64 as well (is it even possible to develop ActiveX objects for 64-bit OS'es??)

Now, the GOOD:
- FAST. NIS2008 has a small footprint, and performance is outstanding. Granted, I'm not running a small machine (Core2 Duo 6400 with 2GB RAM and a 4GB USB drive in ReadyBoost mode), but I trialled several other suites and got a serious slowdown.
- IdentifySafe: The password storage feature is nice; Its encrypted, has a strong password, and I can archive a copy. It works on both IE and Firefox, should I decide to use FF again (or switch back and forth). Should I switch in a year to something else, it gives you the ability to get the plain-text password (like you can with Firefox's password manager) so I can transfer to something else.
- Security. While Symantec / Norton get a bad rap for performance (which appears to be fixed to this user), they always score high on independent testing. They are also one of the few AVs to receive ISCA cleaning certification for 64 bit Vista. My "Can I sleep at night with my machine online" test works with Symantec.
- Easy Installation. I don't know if the planets aligned a couple weeks ago, but for the first time with a Symantec / Norton product the first install went without a hitch. Everything worked from the get-go (other than the right-click scan listed in the BAD section).

In any event, the product gave me enough of my security / performance / ease-of-use matrix to help me part with 50 bucks. I really thought OneCare (my last suite) would be best for Vista 64, but until they fix changing IE settings to less secure ones, I won't touch it. Another reason came from a friend who made a valid point: Do I really want to rely on just one vendor for the OS AND the security?

I give NIS2008 two thumbs up - Not everything is perfect yet, but for me at least it works better than most of the other 64 bit suites out there.

 

Hi,

I am also user of NIS 08 user and agree with you and add my also.

 

I do not own it but my sisters new laptop comes with it and it uses barely any memory.

What do you think about 64bit? The laptop has 64bit compatibility but came with 32bit vista. And i do not want to install 64bit because drivers will go missing.

 

I also ran the trail on a x64(not 64bit, 64bit=IA, x64=AMD, INTEL) Business, it is quite light but as mentioned the right click scan missing is greatly missed. Needless to say it wasn't my cup of tea.

OT- I have a ThinkPad R61(T7100 2GB) and it actually came with x64 Vista Business, but I much prefer WinXP x64 even with the lack of all required drivers, it is much faster.
Then again most of the time when I use it I am in the *nix side! /OT

 

I think that was a problem earlier on. My machine was built last spring, and my wife's I built the year before. I've had zero problems finding 64 bit drivers for anything, actually.

There's a few nice security features in Vista64 that made it worthwhile, as well as the fact that I expect to bump my memory up to 4GB soon.

 

Well I've got a brand new x64 system and ditched Trend Micro in favour of NIS 2008. Simply because I've used various Norton products for years on various systems.
All went swimmingly (apart from getting rid of Trend!) until I found that there had been no integration to the context menu. I even reinstalled again before I contacted support.
Interestingly, I used the chat support, which meant I was speaking with someone immediately. His response- "NIS does not integrate to the context menu on x64 systems", but they are working on a patch apparently. He gave me a three to four week timeline......hmmmmm
Anyway fingers crossed for early May!

 

I should have updated this post before, my apologies. After working through their support quagmire (Symantec's support is horrible as always), I finally recieved an email to try their new 1.5 version of 2008.

Didn't fix a single problem (and in fact, introduced a network connectivity issue that required me to blow away my network card in Vista and re-install drivers etc. to get working).

I took off NIS 2008, and won't go back. The fact that they can call what they have x64 support is disgraceful.

 

this new version, is it light as avira?

 

Very good in my opinion.

 

Its extremely light. If I were not running 64 bit, I'd have this on the machine I bought it for.

 

Hangestu,

You may wish to submit your problems in the new Norton User Forum and see if you get resolutions.

http://community.norton.com/norton/

 

Too late for me -- Their support gives me too much stress, and it was confirmed (after several reinstalls) that the context scanning doesn't work.

 

Just a smal tip on the right click issue, you can place a shortcut to Navw32.exe in your SendTo folder, that way you can scan files and folders with just one touch.
just type shell:sendto in run box and make a shortcut to Navw32.exe, on my computer it is placed in: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Norton Internet Security\Norton AntiVirus\Navw32.exe"

Hope this helps. This dosent solve the problem but it at least provides an easy bypass of it.