Norton Revisited

Discussion in 'other anti-virus software' started by midway40, Mar 7, 2007.

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  1. midway40

    midway40 Registered Member

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    As I mentioned in the “360” thread, I decided to put my prejudices to the side and try out Norton Internet Security ’07. I did the same thing with Vista and you can see the result, lol.

    First thing to do was to download the trialware which was somewhat smaller than I expected at 46 MB. In comparison, FSIS is 66 MB and TMIS was around 70-80MB (I think it was, I have since then deleted the file). Install went fairly straightforward and I was surprised at not being asked for a reboot after the installation. I then fired up Live Update and every module was updated at around a 14MB download. It then asked me to reboot so the new modules could load.

    Booting up didn’t seem longer than usual. In fact Vista loads slower than XP did so it is kind of harder to gauge. The first thing I did was a “pop-up” test. In the last Norton IS I used—NIS ’04 that came with my Dell—it took 10-15 seconds for the main window to come up after clicking the icon in the systray. ’07 took less than 2 seconds. The main window has lost a lot of it’s “yellowness” and doesn’t really look half bad in Aero. Though the interface looks simple, once you start digging around you will find several settings.

    http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/5449/mainwingh6.th.jpg


    I then started “feeling” my way around, opening up Computer, opening programs, etc to test for the sluggishness that I experienced in ’04. Everything was nice and snappy. Next thing I did was open up Task Manager and looked at process usage. Vista identified 5 of the processes belonging to Symantec and using Calculator I found the total usage at that time was 7.2 MB-- very surprising for a suite. Scanning my computer took a little over an hour. I can’t remember exactly but it was over 400,000 files. I usually set exclusions on my gaming directories and my backup drive but forgot to beforehand. Next time it should take less time though the length of time doesn’t really bother me as I tend to scan overnight or when I know I won’t be using the computer for a while.

    To test the AV and see what kind of warnings it presents, I downloaded the Eicar test file in which a pop up window over the systray informed me that it blocked the file. The next thing was to test it “real world” so I headed off to the land of cracks and warez.

    http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/9728/viruswarnjz9.jpg

    This part became frustrating, I could not get any warnings as I searched for a Nero crack (only because of it’s popularity, I thought it would be targeted for nasties more than others). In fact it seemed like IE7 was doing most of the protection as it blocked some things that tried to install such as “Remote Data Services Data Control”. I gave up on this after an hour, shaking my head. The feeling is akin to stepping into a lion’s den wanting to be eaten but none will have anything to do with you, lol. I will try again another time.

    So far the ‘07 firewall seems to be more silent than the ’04 version. It seemed like back then as soon as I got online NIS’04 was informing me that it was blocking hacker attempts. And I was on dial-up at the time, lol. However because of the nature of satellite internet I cannot test the firewall. It always shows everything open except Port 80. I don’t quite understand why this is but have gotten reasurrances from more knowledgeable people on a satellite forum that this does not mean I am open to the world. I have not had any warnings from the FW yet but a glance at the logs told me it was doing its job.

    I haven’t really tested antispam as I really don’t need it since my ISP uses Postini which does a fair job of filtering.

    NIS installs a phishing toolbar in IE7. Normally I do not like extra toolbars because they tend to be too busy for me (such as Yahoo). NIS’s phishing bar is more simplistic and doesn’t look so bad to me in IE7. I run at 1280x1024 but it may look worse on resolutions of 1024x768 and less. The two icons at the right of the “Norton” tells you of the status of the security risks (I believe this is more in telling you that your definitions may be outdated or that you haven’t scanned in a while) and the other tells you that web monitoring (HTTP scanning) is on. The middle drop bar tells you if you are on a phishing site or not of course. The Options on the far right lets you report a site.

    http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/2198/phishingbarzf2.th.jpg


    The only cons (which may not be depending on how you look at it) is that any changes in settings results with the admin password box popping up (I am a Standard User). Once I had all the changes done this isn’t much of a problem but however Live Update wants admin privileges too so I have to supply the password before updating. Now while this may be annoying, it also tells you at least if some kind of virus starts monkeying around with the AV you will be notified of it. NIS also provides self-protection as well according to a setting I saw (why would anyone want to turn it off?).

    So those are my observations so far. One thing is for sure, this NIS is far above the version that came with this computer back in ’04. I think that Norton has finally shaken off the “bloatware” label. With all of this plus it’s 96.xx% detection rate and being one of the only two AV’s (the other being NOD32) which detected all 12 polymorphic viruses IBK threw against it, NIS is starting to grow on me…whoah, did I just say that? :blink: :D
     
    Last edited: Mar 8, 2007
  2. eBBox

    eBBox Registered Member

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    That was a really nice personal review :) What I like most is how silent and well it works. Especially the way the FW works could be an inspiration for the other companies ;) Im giving it a go to today, havent tried it on vista yet so its about time ;)

    eBBox over and out ;)
     
  3. Legendkiller

    Legendkiller Registered Member

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    nice to read that someone has atleast made an effort to try norton first and then write about it....
    i am really happy the like many others "midway40" also had a happy experience with it.
     
  4. Longboard

    Longboard Registered Member

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    Sounds like you already know this;

    You can config the FW to pop-up each connection if you want ??
    The default setting is "Auto"

    NIS>Settings> Personal FW> rejig the check boxes
    ( heh: while leaving the FW "ON" ) and see what happens.
     
  5. C.S.J

    C.S.J Massive Poster

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    this forum is biased!
    o_O

    my only problem with norton 2007/360 are too many 'manual deletes', otherwise fantastic program and a major improvement on previous versions.
     
  6. ASpace

    ASpace Guest

    I'll second that. :D

    Midway40,your review is definitely better than those found online or in popular magazines such as PC World / PC Magazine .
     
  7. Lollan

    Lollan Registered Member

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    Just imagine how much the software companies pay them to write those too .. :O
     
  8. midway40

    midway40 Registered Member

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    Thanks guys, you can teach an old dog new tricks :)

    Longboard: no thanks, I will keep my FW as is, lol. I assume that it will alert you of more serious attacks such as worms. FSIS and TMIS was like this.

    CSJ: I haven't had any to delete yet though I have tried my damndest, lol.

    I found a user review on Neowin on the 360 which echoed most of the things I observed. He was more detailed in his account, using a stopwatch and such. Except for the "cons" part where he mentions the 360 not having Right Click Scans (NIS surely has it because I was using it to scan the crack files I had downloaded desperately trying to find something bad) and plus I don't think the phishing bar is that ugly, lol.

    http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=542170&hl=norton+360

    I just now noticed that it says that I have the minimum recommended security. Everything shows green except for the Windows User Control so I will look into that tonight.
     
  9. Howard Kaikow

    Howard Kaikow Registered Member

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    Does not NAV/NIS 2007 still have the Norton Protection Center?
     
  10. Seer

    Seer Registered Member

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    Just wanted to add on my behalf...

    Way to go midway40.
    We need more of exactly these kind of reviews around. :D

    Cheers, man :thumb:
     
  11. Longboard

    Longboard Registered Member

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    Yes. Cant get the icon off the systray. :p
    Heh: Happy with choice; but surely one Symantec icon is enough, realistically they do the same thing or could do.
     
    Last edited: Mar 9, 2007
  12. The One

    The One Frequent Poster

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    I must say it is a really great review.
    And that's from a tester.

    Congrats I'm almost convinced to go for Norton:)
     
  13. eBBox

    eBBox Registered Member

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    Installed the 3 month trial yesterday. Its been running very well for me. To add a small thing to the review, the phishing bar dosent integrate to firefox (dunno if its nessecary but anyway it dosent).
     
  14. JimIT

    JimIT Registered Member

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    Where's Randy? ;)
     
  15. Simon6776

    Simon6776 Registered Member

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    Nice review Midway. :thumb: When I tried NIS2007, it subjected me to a 4½ minute boot up time, but since then, I have reinstalled Windows, and cleared out a lot of cr@p. I've exhausted my curiosity in switching suites for the moment, but I will certainly consider trying NIS2007 again, when my F-Secure license expires in May. :)
     
  16. midway40

    midway40 Registered Member

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    Yeah, Simon I know what you mean. I was getting kind of tired of switching AV's around but using Vista forced me to look around some more.

    As of an hour ago I am now an official Norton user (I never thought I would never say that, lol). I never used a "good" Norton since I was a relatively late starter as far as using antiviruses. I have been on the net since '96 but didn't start usings AV's until around '03. Back then one night I did a stupid thing and clicked on a .vbs file which commenced to delete everything on my hard drive. I decided then to start running an AV on my computer. I did try out NIS '03 when I had my old Dim. 4100 (P3-800MHz). It wasn't stellar but better than '04 was. Around that time I had read some comments from old Norton users who said that '02 was the last "good" Norton before it started sliding downhill.

    I did have one last test to perform which I did last night. I uninstalled NIS to see if it would do it cleanly. NIS '04 was a nightmare for me to uninstall, I remember spending three hours in the registry cleaning traces of it out. I can report that '07 uninstalled with no problems. :)

    Again thanks to everyone for the kind comments. I believe that is the first review I have ever posted. :)
     
  17. DVD+R

    DVD+R Registered Member

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    You can choosw whether to have the Norton Internet Security Icon in the taskbar or not,but default installation will just add the Security Center to the taskbar, If you want, or if the NIS icon is showing in the taskbar also, disable it from the Settings Window ;) I'm going to install NIS again, and make this a permanent fixture,as I tried KIS, but the thing just plays nasty with Spy Sweeper on my system, and SS scans take over 90 minutes with Kaspersky or KIS installed no matter what I add to the trusted zone. As there are very few Firewalls available for Vista just now, its a toss up between Trend ISS Kaspersky IS or Norton IS, and as out of these 3 only Norton Scored a Perfect '0' on false positives, its gonna have to Be Norton :cautious:

    Edit: However I did try Norton 360, and threw it out within 15 minutes, What I found was that this software was extremely average, and probably best used by the Complete Novice Computer user, who has no Knowledge of, or is reluctant to adjust security settings. Norton 360 maybe a good suite in itself, but where the application fails, is the user is unable to make adjustments to advanced settings, as there are none. The Virus Scan itself is very basic,and only performs a quick check of your system,and settings are Automatic ( which Symantec Recommend) where as your Computer will be checked periodically by 360 while your Computer is Idle. There is a weekly or monthly choice available for Virus Scans, but again Only Quick Checks are available, to check thouroughly, the user has to manually select this option. I would say Symantec have considered that a Quick Scan is all that is needed,and Consider that their product will eliminate harder to remove problems, by blocking the installation. I also found that the Spyware Component could not be disabled, letting the user to option for a secondary Spyware Program impossible to overide Nortons. I was surprised at the price of just over $55 as NIS and NAV come in much higher. Realistically Symantec have failed miserably with this New Product, the need for Automatic Back-Ups and Disk Defragmentation is overboard in my view,and lacks any real purpose considering the fact for probably $40 more you could purchase Norton System Works Professional and get the same protection with a few more bells & whistles. In Retrospect this is one Company I've had experience with,and stayed away from, up untill Norton Internet Security 2007 which is far more functional than 360. If you've used Norton in the past,and arnt afraid to Give Complete Control to the Internet World,and its Dangers, Go right ahead, but if your more prone to want Stronger more reliable protection, then look elsewhere.
     
    Last edited: Mar 10, 2007
  18. Edwin024

    Edwin024 Registered Member

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    You can also look at this from another angle:

    Hassle free security. A thing 90 percent of the PC population loves (the rest is here at Wilders :) ). And 360 is far from avarge in my view.
     
  19. Simon6776

    Simon6776 Registered Member

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    90 percent of the population also 'love' Internet Explorer, but that doesn't mean it's not sh*t! Maybe if everyone were forced to use a better, more secure browser, such as Firefox, we wouldn't have the need for all these security products in the first place! ;) :D

    Norton is mainstream. It's sold in every high street store that retails anything to do with computers, and (in my opinion), that's why they have got away with sub-standard versions since 2004. I don't usually like to follow trends, or buy mainstream products, as one can usually find better (as we all know), but as I said before, this version of NIS does look a much improved product, so I will be giving it another outing at some point.

    I also didn't like the multiple system tray icons, so I am pleased that some of them can be turned off, but as for uninstalling, when I tried it before, I had to use the uninstallation tool to completely remove it, and even then, I found registry detritus, and a folder in C:\Program Files\Common Files which had to be manually removed. Just something to be aware of if installing something as fickle as F-Secure, when it comes to the presence of other security apps.
     
  20. DVD+R

    DVD+R Registered Member

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    On a further note about Norton 360, on uninstalling remnance are left in Windows Security Center which continually report that 360 is up to date and turned on :blink:
     
  21. midway40

    midway40 Registered Member

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    I wasn't even going to try out 360 because of my experience with One Care. I have other programs for defragging and cleaning and didn't wanted to have some popup telling me I needed to do so every so often.

    I am finding myself using IE7 more and more. As my experience in trying to 'catch a virus' showed, IE7 is a lot more secure than earlier versions. Plus the Vista version has Protected Mode in which, from what I gather, anything in temporary internet files that tries to install something or adjust system setting is subjected to authorization, even if you are running as admin. However if you turn off UAC, protected mode is also turned off. I believe this was what prevented one of the crack sites from installing “Remote Data Services Data Control” (whatever that is).

    DVD+R, I had a similar experience. Before now I was running F-Secure Tech Review plus PC Tools firewall and I uninstalled these before installing NIS. When I did my uninstall test for NIS the other night, I checked in Security Center to see if the Windows firewall was turned back on but it reported that PC Tools FW was on and working o_O I went into the registry and deleted every instance of PCTFW plus on the hard drive as well (plus hidden files) and it is still reported in Security Center. Plus I tried system restore but the last restore point was AFTER I installed PCTFW :mad:
     
  22. Hipgnosis

    Hipgnosis Registered Member

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    To get rid of PC Tools Firewall in Security Center you can do this...

    1. Open "Control Panel"
    2. Select "Performance and Maintenance"
    3. Select: "Administrative Tools"
    4. Double-click "Services"
    5. Locate: "Windows Management Instrumentation", right click on it and select "Stop"
    6. Go to the "wbem" folder (C:\Windows\system32\wbem)
    7. Locate the "Repository" folder and delete it (DELETE ONLY THE REPOSITORY FOLDER!!)
    8. Repeat steps 1 - 5 but this time right click on "Windows Management Instrumentation" and select "Start". This will recreate the "Repository" folder.
    9. Reboot your computer

    I had to do this to get rid of Comodo after giving it a try awhile back.
     
  23. Edwin024

    Edwin024 Registered Member

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    You clearly haven't used IE7... I was a Firefox adept myself, but with IE7 Microsoft certainly is no ****.
     
  24. midway40

    midway40 Registered Member

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    Hipgnosis: While this works in XP, it doesn't seem to work in Vista. I shut down the WMI service and when I went to delete the repository folder it said it could not be deleted because another folder was using it. I then logged in my admin account and got the same results. I then used CMD window and once again got the "access denied". I even tried safe mode with the same results.

    I then got a brainstorm and pulled out one of several Linux live disks I have. The first one, PCLinuxOS, accessed Windows but said it could not delete the folder because it could not delete INDEX.BTR that is inside it. Next I tried Ubuntu but it could not mount the drive Windows is on. I then tried Mepis and got the same thing with PCLOS. I could not believe this, I have never had trouble doing this before.

    If anything came out of this is that I found out good Vista's security is, lol.
     
  25. Hipgnosis

    Hipgnosis Registered Member

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    Well I guess it was worth a shot. Sorry it was of no help though. Good luck finding a solution.
     
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