How would you rate Symantec/Norton's Security Products?

Well lately i've been hearing a lot of negative posts and ideas on symantec and even though i myself don't like them at all, i'm wondering how the rest of the public feel about it. how would YOU rate symantec/norton's security software?

EDIT: feel free to express your opinions on their products here

 

Norton is too expensive : softwares, upgrading and phone support.
Norton is like a tattoo, hard to remove, once installed.

Norton Defragmenter is a nightmare.
Norton CleanSweep didn't work properly on my computer.

Norton Anti-Virus is very good and very popular in Belgium.
Norton Internet Security did its job too on my computer.
I never used any other Norton software.

Norton would never be my first choice in anything, but I wouldn't call Norton crap either like some people do.

 

+1, i think norton might be ok for newbies (tho common sense in updating it still applies). ive used norton for a few years back and its caught a few viruses. after a while, i got tired of it and switched to nod32 on recommendation from a mod on another forum.

also, i find symantec's corp antivirus much better as it has a cleaner tho sometimes less user friendly interface. the latest v10 is a little bit heavier but id choose it over norton anyday.

 

I used to like NAV back in the old days -- I was a big version 5 fan,and I stuck with them to 2003. But.... their new stuff for home users and workgroups is way too bloated. I put 2004 on my PIII 800 box and uninstalled about 2 days later.

I do like their corporate product, however. It works well and is fairly easy to administer. They also have good tech support for their corporate customers, well.. good by comparison general levels of tech support from software manufacturers.

However, the SPAM control features in Mail Security SUCK (in case you missed it, that's S U C K, SUCK) so don't even think about enabling that part of the application. The biggest problem is with the crappy non/semi-functional release mechanism for false positives, and the compilation of the weighted word lists is too tedious for someone lazy like me.

I notice that Symantec is losing retail shelf space like crazy -- in many outlets they once were the one and only AV/Security product available. I dimmly suspect that there cause effect relation here -- crack down on grey market OEM product -- loose retail shelf space -- although I have not really thought through the fuzzy suspicion to the point where it is actually a startling insight -- don't want to scare myself.

 

What I really like about Symantec is their On-line Malware Encyclopedia or whatever you call it in English.

 

Personally, I have no problem with the Corp product, I find it protects quite well, not as well as others, but decent for the corporate enviroment.

 

when copying .zip file/ jar/ msi or download/installing/burning thing it slows it to hell! note: disable autoprotect temperally to increase speed

 

and they dont seem to be nice to pat kwallabear (guy who made spybot)

 

As for rating it, I would say it's OK.
Of course it came pre-installed on my PC, as well as on a lot of others.

I liked NIS2003, upgraded to NIS2004 and that's where the problems started.
Asked support to solve this problem and got redirected to their FAQ's, which I already did check out.

Went looking for another AV, tried many and settled with the current one.
Won't be going back, that's for sure.

 

I used to have NIS 2004.

PROS: NAV has one the best virus detection rate

CONS: Terrible support - Problems installing and uninstalling - Mail scanning problems - conflict prone software - High system impact (NIS 2004)

I don't think Symantec has realized that loosing a customer is forever in most cases.

 

The problems of installing and uninstalling has been fixed in Ver.2005/2006 and Nav doesn't run heavy anymore, in fact the 2005/2006 versions actually run pretty light. I get a kick out of some people giving a review on Nav when they haven't used it except for several versions back. There has been a lot of improvements in the last two versions.

 

using it right now (2005) not too many complaints. i'd rate it as b

 

Good. I'm glad I am providing amusement for someone here.

I have an unopened retail box of System Works 2005 that someone gave me. It sits with my shelfware collection. 2004 was so bad (for me, to me) that I cringe everytime I come across the 2005 box again. I feel I should festoon myself with garlic and make the sign of the cross.

 

Same here - but I still use it on my dad's machine because he finds it easy

 

I think it's only okay.

 

At the risk of being shot with a silver bullet, I'd say they're on par with the best of the competition.

 

Ok, I will test it. What the hell

 

I voted "not sure" for now. This is my first full foray into the world of Symantec. I recieved it for Christmas as I wanted to give old Norton a real try, and not part with MY money. Have to say, so far its great, and yes I have tried all the ones you people have tried. I'll give it time, maybe my mind will change, maybe not.

 

that is truely the only way to tell, you have to try it on ~your~ system, see if it runs ok on that, regardless of how many others don't have troubles or vice versa.

I personally use another AV, but as bigc says, sometimes previous versions may have had problems and they get fixed, but the opposite is also true, a lot of times older versions of programs seem to run better on some machines than the later versions.

Cheers, TAS

 

Ok, exit Nod32, in came Norton AV 2005. MY GODDDDDD. But, ok, I will give it a chance. First experiences...Installing and first updating: no problems, a bit slow (3 updates (mucho embayo's), 3 reboots, must have been an old copy), that's all. Taskmanager: . Enabled taskscheduler before installing because as far as I know Norton needs it. That of course makes booting a hell of a lot slower. Will try it as long as I have an opinion.

 

I will admit that their support could use work, but they do have the best web sit and knowledge base I know of. And I don't buy downloadable software. When I purchase I wan't a disc and they come with a reg no. I have never had one of those not work.

 

I used Norton for years with no major problems, but through this forum I learned that there are altenatives that better suit my needs. I do not think knowing what I know now I will be using it again.

 

Ok, I have "tested" Norton AV 2005. It slows down your pc. Not immensly, but noticable when used to nod32. 9 new processes (norton-exe's) are running after installing. There are 8 more processes running in taskmanager after boot compared to when nod32 is running. Installing the software gives the feel of digging itself deep in your pc, but the slowing down is much less than you would expect. The user interface is ok, shouldn't give anyone real trouble, but my god it's ugly. Of course you don't buy software because it looks nice, but even my 3 year old nephew, which I don't even have, can do a better job. I visited a variety of crack/pornsites to test it and later I visited the same sites where it missed malware with Nod32 and they both missed the same (istbar; ewido and some av's (jotti) didn't miss btw). I had norton 24 hours or so installed and the whole time never had an update (for what it's worth). Only 24 hours? Yes, only 24, because it may not slow down the pc the way you would expect, but the pc loses "smoothness" compared to when Nod32 is running and given the fact that I feel safer running Nod32 and further testing would be quite pointless (unless I would run it a year and visit all crack/pornsites available, which I of course don't, never did and never will ) I uninstalled it. EDIT: uninstalling gave no problems whatsoever. It left folders and registryentries, but that's not uncommon. I made an image before installing and will go back to that in a short while, but so far no sideeffects. Of course I cleaned up after uninstalling and not everybody will/can do that so how the result would be without cleaning up afterwards...I dont know. (I send the samples to eset and symantec)

 

I've had lots of problems installing/uninstalling Norton stuff over the years. Yes BigC, that refers to NIS2006 too. It only completely uninstalls NIS2004 or 2005, not older stuff. Recent stuff seems pretty fragile/unstable. See this thread for my latest experience which reinforced why I don't like it:
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=113415

Tons of modules, lots of registry and hidden file activity, frequent large application module updates does not inspire confidence, etc. Really bogged down a 1GHz P4 machine too. Feels like its getting bloated to me.

Having said that, it seems to work okay if you can get it installed and stabilized. I didn't like the weekly update frequency from the 2002 version and switched to NOD and have been happy at the general performance of NOD vs. Symantec apps.