HELL HAS FROZE OVER!!....Norton to Speed, Not Slow, Computers

I have used NOD32 for a long time and recently decided to give NIS 2008 a spin.

I have an Opteron 170, Vista Ultimate 32-bit and 2GB Ram. Nothing that fancy.

I am actually surprised at how light it is compared to NOD 3.0.650. Not much difference actually.

It does use a lot of disk space for all it's stuff, but I can live with it.

Looking forward to see how it does on the May av-comparatives. If not great, I may switch back.

But some people are having trouble with the new NOD, and I started having a few blue screens that I wasn't able to pinpoint the cause of, so I gave NIS a spin.

 

Norton is very popular in Belgium. One of the largest bank in Belgium uses Norton.
This bank has lots of employees so they use also Norton and their family members and people they know as well.
I think that this is one the main reasons, why Norton is so popular in Belgium, which is a pretty small country. My first AV was also Norton (N.I.S.), never heard of KAV or NOD.

Each time a malware hits many computers world-wide, we see it on the news, with the Norton yellow boxes in the background and every computer shop is selling more AV's than usual. Typical human behavior : act when it is too late.

 

It's not just Belgium. More or less in all european countries there is a Mr. Yellow empire. Or at least it was up to 4-5 years ago. In the last years you do hear and see more AVs, but Norton is still the most "famous". I remember one a friend some years ago that came to my house, we sat in front of the PC, he didn't see the Norton tray icon (the image of God) and told me "wow, you don't have Norton? Internet is dangerous!".

In the few past years, you do have more choices in shops and more pubblicity of other AVs in pc magazines and it was actually Norton's "resource hogging" releases that made some people to wonder "Hey! What if Norton isn't the only antivirus around?" , which made them go to shops and some them "discovered" the "underdogs" on the lower shelves of the stores, below the multiple lines of yellow boxes.

 

Fuzzfas,
Thanks for the funny 'friend' story. and yes, your Norton's history is plausible.
Some users are really brainwashed by their AV, if it wasn't software, it would frighten me.

 

That one "not clear" case was previously running Mcafee. I've heard that the Norton business AV 10.1/10.2 (I think it's been updated to 11 or something else) was a lot better than the regular consumer (personal) Norton/symantec AV.

I don't know as I haven't run Symantec/Norton since 2000 when they screwed me out of about 9 months worth of updates. Back then I didn't know much that much about computers and was running system works. I developed a computer problem and had a local shop look at it. They saved my data but had to do a reinstall and all their reinstalls included a clean install of system-works included in the bill. Since I had an almost new retail copy of system works, I tried to install it on my wife's computer. Norton wouldn't do it, & said that I was SOL, tough. Haven't been a customer of theirs since then, and probably never will.
(unless they pony up the 9 months they owe me)​

 

That is exactly my experience. The May test will likely show little change, although some test parameters were changed and of course new test-sets are employed. NIS 2008 does not have the best heuristics- Avira and NOD32 lead the list- or have in the past. Norton is decent in heuristics- just not outstanding.

 

Well Bunkhouse, NIS 2008 is off and Avira Premium 8 is on.

Found a free 3 month license to try with.

NIS's heuristics appear to be falling behind in the latest comparatives.

I just hope that Avira does the job and doesn't report too many FP's.

A bit disappointed it doesn't scan my Outlook-based SSL email but that may not be such a bad thing.

 

Yes, you are right. I reinstalled Avira Security Suite after poor NIS heuristics showing at comparatives and the fact that it simply runs heavier on my machine than Avira. Avira has had few FPs for me- contrary to some others. I have all heuristics set on high. Don't worry about mail scans. If anything tries to execute, it will likely be stopped.

 

all i can say is watch this space. maybe for once symantec will use all of its employees to make something good.

 

The 07-08 NIS versions are looking up! I had a bad taste put in my mouth back in 03-04 with their software, but if they can deliver a top notch security product that is lighter than the current crop, then I will be hard pressed to pass them by!! However, due to the mass O.E. installs and the Norton following in general I suspect they will fair just fine even if this turns out to be a "flash in the pan!"

 

i actually liked their 2005 product too, although many people did not.

2006 was the biggest disaster ever, but 2007 was truly amazing.

 

So does the 2009 beta make your pc faster?

 

Re: HELL HAS FROZE OVER!!

I have what should still be a pretty quick dual core. intel 6700 @2.66 with a couple gigs of ram.

I use and like the 2008 version of Norton's suite, but my daily full scan...even in the background....slows my system WAYYYY down on my machine.

The rest of the time it is fine.

 

same here amd AMD Phenom™ X4 Quad-Core 9600, 4gig ram, Nvidia 9800, 2x 500gig sata when i do a scan it does make it slow down abit