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norton 360

Korlon

Member
Has anyone tried to use Norton 360 on the sp2?

I'm not vey confident in the internal software and was wondering if it slows the achine down significantly
 

MickeyLittle

Active Member
Has anyone tried to use Norton 360 on the sp2?

I'm not vey confident in the internal software and was wondering if it slows the achine down significantly

I've been very happy with Windows Defender/MalwareBytes Pro combo. I know that MBP isn't free but to me it runs seamlessly in the background and along side Defender I feel very confident for less than $30 a year! And I have MBP on 2 desktops at home as well. I just got sick of Norton as it just seemed to really be a resource hog in my opinion.
 

GoodBytes

Well-Known Member
Depends on your needs.

The best Anti-virus (A/V) are the ones that are very aggressive and slows down your computer to a crawl. If you need that level of protection than sure, go with Norton, in your case.
Especially if you are in a company and seek maximum security and protection, where they are more important than having a smooth and fast computer experience. That is why school computers or work computers in many places, take ages to login in your account, and programs takes time to start.

If you use safe web practices, and that you know that if you open an image, and it asks you for admin privileges when you opened it, then you know something is wrong, and not give it, and you do backups of your stuff, and basically you follow these safe secure practices throughout (don't plugin anyone USB key inside, unless you trust that person and the content to be virus free). Then in this case, you don't need Norton, and Windows Defender will be sufficient.

Better the A/V, the more it will slow down your system. Simple as that. You can safely draw a nice correlation on that. Windows Defender won't detect hard to detect viruses, and because it is part of Windows 8, maybe, one day, some viruses will be able to by-pass detection, and Microsoft, might take a while before it gets fixed (several days or a week or two), but in the other hand, your computer acts like if you have no A/V installed, where everything is speedy and responsive.

For me Windows Defender is all I need. Under Windows 7 I used Microsoft Security Essential, and on my laptop, being slower, I disabled even that. The chances of getting a virus when visiting large company website, or school website are near 0%. And I know that Image.jpg.exe, isn't an image. I do, on occasion, enabled it to do a manual scan... finds nothing as always, 5 years of that :)
But again, it depends on you. It must be noted that my laptop doesn't contain any sensitive data. and things are backup daily. I could wipe the entire drive and re-install Windows, without worrying about a thing, or even get a USB key to get stuff back.
 
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daniielrp

Active Member
I agree with the above, it depends a lot more on the user than the software really.

For me, a big part of my job is supporting PCs/Macs etc and one of the most common things is infections (which most of the time are spammy toolbars/PC optimisers rather than full on viruses) so I know exactly what I'm looking for and how my PC should be responding to things - as said above opening a picture shouldn't need admin privileges, but you have to know and watch out for things like this.

I use the in-built defender on Win 8, and my Mac has never had an A/V product on it - but that's because I'm very confident in what I'm doing on them. If you don't feel as confident then I'd definitely say some of the paid for solutions are worth it, and these days unless you're gaming or doing intense work then your PC will have plenty of spare resources for something like Norton.
 

benjitek

Active Member
Sort the rankings grid by 'performance' to get a better idea of which suite might suit your needs -- from the looks of formal test results, Symantec isn't such a good choice: AV-TEST - The Independent IT-Security Institute: Nov/Dec 2013

Personally, I like Kaspersky -- seems to have no impact on system resources while apparently providing the highest ranked level of protection...
 
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GoodBytes

Well-Known Member
The problem I have with these tests is that they are predictable. Meaning the anti-virus makers knows what will be tested and can optimize the anti-virus for it.
Also, it doesn't check for false positives. I can make a software that mark every single files on the system as viruses. There you go, I'll be the best, and because it doesn't actually scan anything, I'll have the highest performance too.
False positive is a big issue. Norton and McAfee both targeted Windows core files as viruses and remove them, making users have no choice than to format and re-install the system. And if they don't have the knowledge or even second computer, all their data were lost due to the format process of when you install Windows from scratch. That is beside them breaking software. I used Kaspersky once, and it targeted my own software (networking school assignment) as a virus. False positive of course. Then I discovered renaming the file solved the problem. So I guess it detected a virus from file name... that's silly. But that's not the point.. the point is false positive detection.

And that causes another problem... by detecting false positive, it makes a user beleive that the anti-virus is doing good work, when it isn't, and makes the user wonder what he or she did to get a virus, while what they are doing is perfectly correct to avoid them, and did nothing wrong.
 

benjitek

Active Member
...the anti-virus makers knows what will be tested and can optimize the anti-virus for it...
That's a bunch of bull... Did you even glance at the section on testing criteria? Believe what you want, but don't present it as factual to others ;-)
 

GoodBytes

Well-Known Member
That's a bunch of bull... Did you even glance at the section on testing criteria? Believe what you want, but don't present it as factual to others ;-)

I did. I am not saying it's bad, I am saying it's predictable by those who have large experience in the field in making A/V solutions. I don't think they can make it better, but if it's predictable, than its not "the law" on how good an anti-virus is because the testing process has a flaw.
 

MickeyLittle

Active Member
This conversation is way over my head because I've used Norton Internet Security for years until Windows 8 and I have never had it to call any of my files/documents a virus/Trojan etc... Sorry but some of this just seems to be out in left field for me!
 

benjitek

Active Member
...I am saying it's predictable by those who have large experience in the field in making A/V solutions...
Right... you're 'saying' that -- and it's completely opinion-based, which you should state. Your statements contain no factual information -- but -- thanks for stopping by ;-)
 

GoodBytes

Well-Known Member
Right... you're 'saying' that -- and it's completely opinion-based, which you should state. Your statements contain no factual information -- but -- thanks for stopping by ;-)
Huh? I don't know.. to me it's common sense the issue, but if you like to explain go ahead.
 

benjitek

Active Member
Huh? I don't know.. to me it's common sense the issue, but if you like to explain go ahead.
I've explained that you're commentary is just that, opinion -- not fact-based info so that readers don't mistake it for anything other than what it is. Maybe you have links to material that backs the statements you've made, otherwise, there's nothing to explain. Facts are facts ;-)
 
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