In a bid to corner the novice users who don't really do a lot on their PC, Symantec has come up with a streamlined installation process. All the user has to do is click one button, and it's done-we timed it on a low-range model with 1.73 G Hz processor speed and 512 MB RAM, at a little less than two minutes. The user interface is pretty slick, with Computer and Internet panels, which depict the security situation of the PC, and protection against online and offline threats. There are also two bar graphs on the left side of the main application window that displays the real-time CPU usage and Norton's contribution to this percent value.

Features

The AntiSpyware category comes with a shield against hack tools, spyware, trackware, dialers, adware, parental control and protection against other fraudulent applications. The AntiVirus component, apart from the now standard heuristics
and signature based analyses, checks for rootkits and hidden items, tracks cookies, and automatic scans of MS Office modules. The e-mail scan protection features are pretty basic, with scanning of incoming and outgoing messages and while testing the only 1M programs supported were Yahoo, AOL, MSN and Trillian. Browser protection was a bit ambiguous, but we checked out the handy help file to find that it protects the PC against drive-by downloads from malicious websites. The only downside is that apart from Internet Explorer 6 or higher, and Firefox, no other browser is supported. The Network Security component has improved compared to its predecessor, with a neat display of all the computers connected. While it doesn't exactly perform all the functions of a full fledged firewall, it does monitor the security status of other computers on the network.

Name: Norton Antivirus with Antispyware 2009 v 16.jpg Views: 446 Size: 29.8 KB

Performance

According to the independent testing labs of AV Comparatives in a report dated August 2008, Symantec's Norton Antivirus ranked third overall with a total detection. It only had eleven false positive warnings, and stood first in the category of scan speed with 22.2 MB/ sec, calculated as size of the clean-set in MB's divided by the time needed to finish the scan in seconds. This version is also very lightweight and used by only 24 MB of Private Bytes, or exclusively occupied RAM. If you worry about your privacy, it's a good idea to opt out of sending security information to Symantec's server.

Verdict

It's good, but is it worth the money? It's hard to say. AVG Free gives it tough competition, and there are tons of other antivirus programs to choose from.

FOR:

Lightweight and quick on its feet.

AGAINST:

Minor Web browsers support.