Norton / Symantec Internet Security and AV - bum rap for resource usage?

i've lurked here for a while, but have never posted. it's been a least five years since i installed a Norton/Symantec product, but decided to give NIS 2006 a try today.

after installing and restarting, i received a bunch of annoying popups, etc, opening up the security center was extremely slow and live update was slow also and required a restart. after restarting, i saw pretty erratic cpu usage by a few of Norton's different processes. because of all this, i was about ready to uninstall right away. instead, I decided to give Norton one more short.

i restarted my puter and the high cpu usage disappeared. maybe the CPU usage I noticed before was because Norton was initially performing some automatic system scans.

now, i can barely notice that NIS is installed at all. looking at windows task manager, the processes are using 0% CPU most of the time, and CPU time over a few hours usage is negligible. i've enabled scanning within archives and haven't noticed a change. opening different file types such as zip, rar and exe does not cause any cpu spikes either. there also seems to be no noticeable slowdown in browsing large numbers of files in windows explorer, browsing the internet nor downloading files. the only thing I have noticed is that when opening an MS Office document, a new process is spawned, which uses up to 50% of my CPU cycles for a couple seconds. Then the process is terminated until the next office doc is opened.

thankfully, disabling the annoying Norton Protection Center service is also very easy.

many other AV/Security Suites I have tried have led to much worse CPU resource usage so I am quite pleased with Norton. I've also had various problems with internet speed using other security packages. Other programs' firewalls have interfered with the Trillian IM app on my PC as well as an on-demand network app I use for work. Norton does take up a bit of memory, but in exchange, you receive an AV, antispam, firewall, IPS, and antispyware.

What I'd like to know is if others have experienced the same positive experience with Norton AV or NIS products? If so, then why is it getting such a bum wrap? Is the low CPU usage because we are actually giving up some protection in comparison to other security vendors' products? Is Norton actually a timebomb which will lure you into a state of comfort and explode in a week?

 

well previous versions of it are really bad in a lot of things. also, its not the cpu usage that matters... almost every security software uses about 0% if your processor is only decent. the main problem with norton is its memory usage and inefficiency. it tends to eat up a lot of memory, slowing down your computer a bit while trying to multitask or do things normally. there are several issues about symantec (most of which i cannot remember), but hopefully my previous poll about their products may help you slightly: https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=115747

btw, i personally don't like norton products from my past experiences

 

Well, Norton "bashing" is a kind of national sport on forums , but I've run NIS 2004 which wasn't as heavy as a lot of people like to say. And a special mention to Nav 2006, which is simply one of the most light AV indeed... OK, that's not NOD32 (a winner, about memory use), but it's at a very reasonable 16-20 Mo in memory, and more important, doesn't slow your work on the computer at all , unlike some other Avs are used to do...

Nav/NIS has some stupid habits, like launching WindowsMessenger just to protect it , but because you can change a lot in its settings, you can fix what you don't like, and there's no discomfort.

Cheers,
nicM

 

I have been running NIS 2005 for a while now and it uses about the same amount of memory as Kav5 av. it uses a lot less memory than Trend internet security. I have always pretty much liked Norton AV but the 2005/2006 versions were a very pleasant surprise.

 

glad you brought that up. every time I load Outlook, WindowsMessenger loads. This has only happened since installing NIS2k6. Any idea how to get rid of this behavior. I've tried several methods of disabling Windows Messenger through Windows XP. Is there any way to do it through Norton?

 

What you say does look more like a Messenger feature, I remember there's a "start messenger when Outlook is opened" option in messenger.

About Norton, launching Messenger at startup when it's not supposed to do, I don't remember the exact way, because I just installed the trial few weeks ago. You can find it somewhere in the options, there's something like "protect the Instant messenger" with a list, and Messenger (MS) is checked by default: just uncheck it , and it won't start with Windows anymore.

nic

 

Thanks, got it. Had to disable it through Outlook. Don't know why it suddenly became enabled in the first place.

 

Below is a screenshot of the resources used by NIS2006:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v30/bruguiere/NIS2006.gif

The processed used by NIS are:

CCAPP.EXE (Symantec User Session) - 17996 K
CCEVTMGR.EXE (Symantec Event Manager Service) - 6140
CCPROXY.EXE (Symantec Network Proxy Service) - 4376
CCSETMGR.EXE (Symantec Settings Manager Service) - 3992
NAVAPSVC.EXE (Norton AntiVirus Auto-Protect Service - 1332
SAVScan.exe (Symantec AutoProtect) - 248
SNDSrvc.exe (Network Driver Service) - 3396
SPBBCSvc.exe (Symantec SPBBC Service) - 952
symlcsvc.exe (Symantec Core Component) - 3008
-----
TOTAL: 41440 K

note: the Norton Protection Center service has been disabled as I feel it's rather a nuissance and offers no real benefit.

Not too shabby IMHO for AV, Antispy, Firewall, IPS, and Spam. The well regarded McAfee VirusScan Enterprise 8.0i takes approximately 38Mb just for AV. CPU usage is fairly minimal on both, but McAfee does cause a CPU spike when launching applications. Sometimes it is up to about 20% on my system, and mostly around 2%. I do not see this behavior in NIS.

While all the NIS modules may not be best in class, taken as a whole it would seem you get pretty good protection.

 

Mojolo, how did you disable Norton Protection Center?

 

WELCOME!

We use SAV Corp. where I work, and have used versions 7 up to 10 on ~200 machines. It does an excellent job.

Because it has by far the greatest market share, and will have a proportionately similar # of complaints about it. Let's face it: People are more prone to voice emotion when their ox is being gored than when things are going according to Hoyle.

Having said that, Norton has had it's share of issues, namely real issues with the 2003/04 versions of NIS, which caused problems for many. The Live Update feature has also had problems sporadically, but there's no question that Norton is an excellent antivirus--IMO.

 

Go to Norton Protection Center Options and uncheck first 2 options

Then use the run command and type services.msc

Find the Norton Protection Center...double click, and change from manual to disable, then stop service

 

I have been using NIS 2006 for a week now. It is as light on my system as my EZAV ,Ad-Aware Plus and ICF were. I think its a very complete suite. I notice no slow down surfing or using programs.

Only problem I had so far was with the Parental Filter. CCPROXY.EXE uses about 6MB when the filter is turned off. As soon as it is turned on the ram usage for CCPROXY shot up to a whopping 100MB. I am disappointed about this as I wanted everything under one roof. I had to load K9 webfilter back on, as it only uses 3MB.

 

ditto

thanks!

 

no doubt experiences like this lead to the "resource-hog" perception of Symantec products. while I have not experienced that kind of ram usage, it is unfortunate that any user should have to....and while easy enough to disable, again, nobody should have to.

edit: found the answer to my question myself

 

I also recently purchased NIS 2006 after testing quite a few others and like you I was surprised at how light it ran. It seems to me that the 2005 and 2006 versions were major improvements over earlier releases of NIS. I think like anything else, once something like NIS gets labeled as heavy on resources as it was for quite a few years. Then you hear people automatically start saying how heavy it is without even having tried a recent release. Even when I first installed the 2005 NIS prior to buying the 2006 upgrade, I had been expecting it to be heavy on resources. Much to my surprise it wasn't at all and the convenience of the package and excellent detection rate of the AV sure made it worthwhile to me. I thought it was a terrific buy for 2 years of updates on NIS 2006 and a free Norton password manager program for only $69.99. When you consider thats only $34.99 per year for AV, Firewall, Ant-Spam, AS, etc. That is a good buy. Also consider that buying seperate apps for all these areas, you will be paying quite a bit more every year and possibly run into some apps not playing nice with others. I want decent security on my systems but I don't want to spend a yearly fortune on it or spend the majority of my computing time tweaking apps to get them to all run well together. So overall if people haven't tried NIS in a few releases then I would recommend that they give the trial a try before discounting it or spewing inaccurate info on the forums about it.

 

Hello

Here is a link to NIS Beta if any are interested.

http://www.symantec.com/public_beta/nis_index.html


con

 

Whew Boy is that an understatement! I think human nature drives people to "backlash" against the "Big Corps", sort of an "Anti-Establishment" mentality. But, although that may make folks feel part of the "in"-crowd, nonetheless it isn't necessarily accurate or fair, rather it is popular "bandwagon" emotionalism. We should strive to be dispassionate, impartial, accurate and fair in our public statements, IMHO. Soooo, it is nice to see folks here publicly "balancing the books" a iittle by actually saying something positive about the products, heh. You know, IMHO it also reflects a bit of an "elitist" spirit, if people are implying that the "masses" are just "duped" by inferior products and don't know any better than to blindly go on buying Symantec products, like dumb sheep ..Well, 'Nuff Said -- I don't wish to get myself in trouble, heh. I do apologize to any and all whom I may have offended by MY rhetoric in this forum as I tend to be defensive when Big Yellow bashers come out of the woodwork!

That's consistent with BigC's claims & experience as well; and mine too. NAV is definitely not "lite" but it isn't as notoriously "heavy" as others have painted it to be, either.

Agreed, I have been particularly surprised by NIS 2005-2006, they really fixed some things and improved it a lot. They also fixed a little "bug" that earlier versions of NIS exhibited with my setup, which is internet connection sharing on a DSL PPPoE Earlier versions did not completely stealth my HOST computer {the one I'm typing from now} which acts as the gateway for my CLIENT computers running behind it on a Home Network. But both NIS 2005 and 2006 easily stealth this HOST-PC with ICS enabled. That was one reason I used ZA Pro for years, but when ZAP 6.x exhibited problems on this HOST-PC, I changed to NIS 2005 {and then later upgraded to the 2006 edition}.

Agreed, I find the latest verions of NIS to be quite aggressive against malware {including expanded threats, security threats, and spyware} -- and frankly i have to reject all these postings that suggest NIS/NAV is as porous as a sieve, and its users are in dire peril of infection .. hehe ..

Well Said, that has always been my contention too, if other products had such lion's share of market, one would see the same "skewed" appearance of complaint against those products because it is human nature to complain when you have problems but remain silent when you don't have problems with a particular product; I hate to coin an overworked phrase, but Nixon's "Silent Majority" comes to mind ..

Well Said, agreed, many folks are IMHO just mouthing off obsoleted opinion about past versions of the product, having never experienced or tried the latest version(s) .. also, you mentioned cost issues or "bargain for your buck" -- I got Norton SystemWorks Premier 2006 from Staples for ZERO dollars after {two} rebates; one rebate from Symantec off the box {competitive upgrade rebate}, the other also from Symantec but obtained because of a Staples purchase. There are many such "deals" out there for Symantec products, available from distributors like Staples, CompUSA, OfficeMAX, etc. and also from eBay, etc. Wait a little after a new release and you the consumer should never have to pay top dollar for it, there will always be plenty of good deals avaiable with a little Googling, or even announced at various forums, etc.

Well Guys, most of these comments have been pleasant to read. While we the users who have had positive experiences with the product, are NOT saying it is perfection, or that other products aren't better at what they do, we ARE saying that the product seems to provide DECENT protection at a REASONABLE cost; and frankly I think that reflects the Market Dynamic and is the reason Symantec continues to lead; i.e. they provide decent product at reasonable cost, and the market responds positively to that, IMHO.

Thanks Again, and
Warmly to All, Ran

 

I can not use NIS 2006 without dissabling PG. Goes into a tries to install service driver loop and clicking allow in PG don't stop it.

 

Yep , that was a cheap way to describe what we can see here and there, and I like your analyze, about the "anti-Establishment", and the elitist spirit: very true I think.

Personally, I've found other products that I prefer and will use (Nod, Avk and Avast) - would it only be to the pleasure of change - but even since I couldn't say that Norton is not a good product. It's anyway a good performer in Av tests, and the reason people keep complaining about it is more related to Symantec's dominating rank than about the AV itself .

Cheers,
nicM

 

My experiences with Norton Personal have been great. However, we bought a copy of Norton Internet Security 2005 a few months ago for our Designer. Her PC is a 2.2 Ghz with 1 GB of Ram and it ran fine w/ Norton Personal antivirus. But after installing NIS 2005 on a reformatted hard drive, she has had nothing but slowdowns and lockups. I'm sure the large files she uses does not help, but she can't stop using Photoshop and Illustrator. Its sad because now we have to eat the cost of the product and buy something different that uses less system resources. I'm sure its fine for the average user, but not users constantly using lots of memory with Image Editing programs and the like. My 2 cents.

 

I am reading this was great interest. I have Norton Systemworks 2005 on my computer. I have never had a problem with it, but I read everywhere that it is a drain on a computer and should be deleted, but that deleting it is near impossible.

As a result, I have been contemplating figuring out a way to delete it from my system and go with AVG or Avast or some freebie. It is now time for me to update NAV (and there is a freebie upgrade deal at Staples this week.)

Wondering what to do. This thread is the first positive thread I have ever seen on this topic.

 

You would be lowering your protection level, plain and simple.

 

Marie, the highlighted above is the salient point of your post. I would consider what you wrote very carefully when you make a decision. I am definitely from the "if it ain't broke..." school.

If NAV is working fine for you, stick with it. That's my advice.

Of course, if it isn't, click my website below, and I'll sell you something else.

 

Nav is a very good av. if it hasn't given you any trouble I wouldn't change. the protection it provides is top notch.

bigc