Norton AntiVirus is the world's best-selling security program. However, its performance has been scrutinized over the years - especially from those in the tech community. Symantec began to address these performance concerns with their 2009 version last year - let's see if this trend continues with Norton AntiVirus 2010...1) Installation:
Norton AntiVirus 2010 quickly installs in only 54 seconds and requires no system reboots. With its Download Manager and Installation Wizard, Norton is now one of the easiest Anti Virus programs to install. Long gone are the days when Norton used to take 20+ minutes to install and required multiple reboots to install (4-5 years ago). (See Installation Time Comparison Graph)
2) Features & Ease of Use:
Norton 2010's user-interface has a similar look & feel to last year's version. However, it builds upon previous versions with several new features such as Norton Download Insight and Norton File Insight which warn of dangerous downloads and files which may be threats. Norton System Insight offers details of your computer's resource usage so its performance can be improved. While Norton's scheduler automatically delays updates, scans and other tasks until your computer is idle - this idle time usage should make Norton Antivirus 2010 even less noticeable to users than it was before.
Also new this year, laptop battery life is conserved by delaying many tasks until the laptop is once again plugged in. On top of this are the many graphs and reports that Norton 2010 has added this year - allowing it to better inform its users of their computer's performance than previous versions did. In many ways Norton has moved closer to the feel of Kaspersky Antivirus with its abundance of charts and graphs that clearly show users their computer's performance in an easily understood visual format. Overall, a great improvement to Norton's feature-set this year.
New Features:
• Norton Download Insight, File Insight, Threat Insight, System Insight,
and Norton Insight Network
• SONAR™ 2 Behavioral Protection
3) Virus Scanner:
Norton has 3 scanning options: Quick Scan, Full System Scan, and Custom Scan. On our test computer with 70GB of used space on its hard-drive it took Norton 2010 just 27 seconds to perform its Quick Scan, while the Full System Scan took 42 minutes making it one of the fastest virus scanners on the market. (See Scan Time Comparison Graph)
New scanning technologies this year include Norton Insight Network (based on Quorum technology) and SONAR 2 (Symantec Online Network for Advanced Response). These features are designed to detect whether a file is trustworthy or not based on behavioral and cloud-based data. This should result in Norton being better able to identify files as being trustworthy or untrustworthy that would have previously fallen into the grey/unknown category. Only time will tell how these new features perform.
Updates:
New last year (Norton 2009) was Norton's new Pulse Update feature that automatically downloads new Virus Definitions every 6 minutes on average (over 200 updates per day). This new feature gives you the most up-to-date protection of any antivirus program available - over 10 times more updates than its nearest competitor. (See Updates Per Day Comparison Graph)
4) Performance Testing:
A good Antivirus program should not only protect your computer from Viruses but also not slow down the Performance of your computer too much by using up your computer's resources. We run each Antivirus program through a set of Performance tests to see the impact it has on the computer. View the results below of our Antivirus testing for Norton 2010...
• Memory Use: Norton 2010 uses only 11.7 MB of system memory. #3 rated of the 10 Antivirus programs tested.
• Reboot Time: Norton added only 6.9 seconds to our test computer's reboot time. #1 rated of the 10 Antivirus programs tested.
• Installation Size: Norton Antivirus 2010 takes 153 MB of hard-drive space for installation. #4 rated of the 10 Antivirus programs tested.
• Application Launch Time: Norton added 0.122s on average to launch a web browser. This was the #4 rated program tested, and Norton's worst ranking in our Antivirus testing.
• File Conversion Time: Norton added only 0.43s on average to convert a MP3 file to four other file types. #1 rated of the 10 Antivirus programs tested.
• System Impact Score: The "System Impact Score" is a comparative score tallied from the above 5 Antivirus tests. Norton 2010 scored a total of 42 out of 50 points when compared to the other Antivirus programs. Norton 2010 was the top-rated Antivirus program we tested, just above NOD32 Antivirus which scored 37 points. This is another strong showing by Norton this year, however, Norton 2009 did perform slightly better against its competition last year in our testing. The main difference in our testing between the 2009 and 2010 versions was that Norton 2010 had a larger installation size and used slightly more memory than it did last year (11.7 MB of memory this year versus 6.3 MB in 2009). Despite all this, Norton Anti-Virus 2010 is still the top performing Antivirus program we tested - so we shouldn't get too critical.
• View graphs showing the results of the above Performance Tests.
5) Effectiveness: (Virus/Malware Detection)
The most important function of an Antivirus program is to keep your computer free from Viruses and other Malware. Below we'll take a look at some of the industry's top Virus/Malware Detection testing and certification.
a) AV Comparatives is an independent Antivirus testing lab in Austria providing some of the most trusted Virus detection tests in the industry. This year AV-Comparatives performed 8 tests on major Antivirus programs. As the graph below shows, Norton (Symantec) performed the best overall and was given their Gold Award as Best Anti-Virus of 2009. Quite an accomplishment for Symantec - and shows just how far they have come over the last few years.
b) ICSA Labs Certified. ICSA is an independent organization that sets standards for security products and certifies anti-virus software.
c) Virus Bulletin's VB 100% Certified. Norton passed the most recent VB100 test (Oct./09), however they did fail the previous test. Of the last 46 tests (going back to November 1999) Norton has passed an impressive 45 of them. The VB 100% award is given to antivirus software that detects all viruses "in the wild."
d) West Coast Labs' Checkmark Anti-Virus Desktop Certification. WCL specializes in functionality testing, performance validation and Checkmark Certification of security products.
6) Help & Support:
Symantec's support has gotten better over the last few years. Previously the only good support was through their paid support systems. Now Symantec offers many good free support options. The Norton support website is comprehensive and easy to use. The in-program Help Files are informative and also offer step-by-step Tutorials for major issues. The "One Click Support" within Norton 2010 automatically scans your Norton software for known issues and offers suggestions. If this doesn't help you can use their free Chat, Email or Phone support - however, free phone support is only offered for limited program issues (virus removal and other PC problems require paid support). We tested their Email support and received a thorough response 9 hours later. Overall, despite negative opinions of Nortons support in the past, it has transformed itself into a top-tier support system.
CONCLUSION:
Norton Antivirus 2010 continues on its revitalization path that began last year towards becoming a better performing Antivirus program. Norton 2010 does have a larger installation size and requires slightly more memory than last year's version, but Norton Antivirus 2010 is still the top of its class in terms of performance. It is now apparent that Symantec is taking the performance of its Antivirus software seriously now as shown by 2 consecutive top-rated versions.
Norton 2010 has several new weapons in its virus-scanning arsenal (Norton Insight Network and SONAR 2) which should better protect against rogue downloads and malicious files. Norton has moved over the last few years to a multi-layered approach to computer security, and its new features this year add yet another layer to your computer's protection.
Norton AntiVirus 2010 was rated the Best Anti-Virus Program by top Antivirus testing lab, AV-Comparatives, in their virus/malware detection tests this year - showing just how far Norton has come over the last few years - now the best Antivirus software on the market.
Norton Antivirus 2010 is a good choice for computer novices and intermediates - for more advanced users we would recommend Norton Internet Security 2010 due to its added Firewall, Anti-Spam, Anti-Phishing, and other capabilities not included in Norton Antivirus - plus it can be installed on 3 computers unlike Norton Antivirus (1 computer).
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