Removing NORTON AV and going to...? (1 Viewer)

[Rob Gardiner]

In my experience NORTON is overrated bloatware.


AVG detects viruses that Norton fails to detect.

This is not a belief on my part. This is a fact that my boss and I observed in an office environment.

 

[Ken Seeber]

My Norton subscription ran out in January and I have been experimenting with various free anti-virus programs. Like you, I do still find value in some of the other SystemWorks components.

If you still have your SystemWorks installer CD, put it in your computer and it will give you the option of unistalling specific components. I uninstalled the anti-virus so I wouldn't keep getting nag boxes to renew my subscription, but left the other SystemWorks components in place.

As far as anti-virus programs, I liked AVG quite a bit, especially the interface, but the program gets less than stellar reviews in many tests. It was several percentage points behind other programs in detecting various viruses.

A free anti-virus program that did better than AVG was avast!, available for download here. I've been using it for about a month and have been very happy with it. avast! is better at detecting trojans than AVG is, too.

There's another free anti-virus that gets even better reviews than avast!, but the name escapes me. It only works with Windows e-mail clients and I'm a Thunderbird devotee, so I never bothered to download it.

 

[Greg*go]

Clamwin (clamwin.com) is another free anti-virus. It's also the only open source anti-virus program that I know of. I downloaded it for a couple days, and found it to be extremely basic. That was a couple months ago though, so maybe they've changed the interface around with the newer version.

Ken, what tests are you talking about? I find it so hard to find an anti-virus test that isn't skewed by sponsorship. They all claim to be the best.

 

[Ken Seeber]

This is the most recent one I've seen, from August 2004. I believe it's a British site:

http://www.10ts.com/reviews/antivirus-test.htm

I misremembered which product only works with Microsoft e-mail clients. It's Kaspersky, which is not freeware. As far as freeware goes, I've been thinking of giving Antivir a try; I've been very happy with avast! and I liked AVG quite a bit too. Of course, AVG's ease of use doesn't mean much if it has a lower detection rate.

 

[Peter Kim]

Had some free time on this sunny, soporific, Sunday afternoon so I ran through a couple of antivirus programs to invigorate me.

I'm relatively new to the pc world, coming from and still using an iMac G4...subsequently, I'm new to the slew of antivirus apps. My Norton 2004 AV subscription is expiring so it was time to draw a bead on finalizing a selection, to pay or go freeware.

I had no reason to feel dissatisfied with Norton, especially given I had no baseline. Since the purchase of my first pc this past Dec., I've never encountered a virus...hell, I don't know what one is or what they do. I reckon I don't peruse porn or pirate software like the rest of you which led to my pc's clean bill of health.

But I'm resistant to paying for something that wasn't even in my scope as a mac user. So I uninstalled Norton from my laptop, ran a registry cleaner, and tried a couple of av apps.

First was Avast!. Easy installation, easy use. No viruses after first run, as expected. Most noticeable was the speed in which my laptop ran - felt like my system was unshackled from a long & heavy burden. This alone convinced me to not go back to Norton.

Never to leave well enough alone, I took the extra step to test another av app, AntiVir. After uninstalling, Avast!, I ran through a little more arduous install with AntiVir.

Right off the bat, saw the ugly, quasi-Star Wars interface. But what it lacked in polish made up more than enough in performance - AntiVir revealed a trojan horse that both Norton and Avast! failed to identify. I was so startled by this discovery that I immediately deleted the offending bit...in hindsight, should've kept the file so that I could try and learn what it does and from where it might have originated.

Like Avast!, AntiVir consumes little system resources vs. Norton. And most importantly, it apparently works, in contrast to the other two. While it's nice to dress in king's clothes with the pretty GUI's of the other av software, AntiVir has given me a less naked sense of security that ultimately sealed the deal...an easy deal to make given it's freeware.

So for those like me navigating uncharted territory in the av realm, try out several before deciding. I'd be interested in hearing other testimonials confirming or otherwise.

 

[Marvin Richardson]

Norton is horrible bloat-/nag-ware and a terrible piece of software. AVG is pretty good, but the detection rate isn't on par with retail products. I prefer AntiVir, though some may not as it doesn't have automatic updates. I prefer to do that myself, so I don't mind.
Here are some interesting tests done a whole slew of anti-virus products: AntiVirus Roundup
As you can see, AVG has the lowest detection rate. NAV and McAfee are just behind Kaspersky. If I were purchasing, I'd probably buy Kaspersky, although the interface isn't as pretty (read "garish") as NAV/McAfee. Personally, I find AntiVir to be a nice alternative, as the RAM usage is really low, second only to AVG and something called F-Prot.

 

[John Watson]

"bloat /nag-ware"

Good one.

Add arrogance. Since my recent disappointment and difficulty with my upgrade to Norton AV 2005, reported above, I've noticed that Norton put its icon on my tool-bar in a place that makes it less convenient for me to get at Internet tools, and the friggin' thing self-schedules a complete virus scan from 8 pm on Friday night. :frowning:

And as mentioned, I swear the hard drive goes into one of those hissy-fit sounding things where it spontaneously chatters, often slowing my work, many more times a day, and for longer periods.

I've even had a hangup with something called Ccap involved, which googling shows to be a Norton bug...

I suppose I'm able to reschedule Norton's work?, but its user-interface dialog boxes for Options make some of Microslob's look intelligent.

 

[Marvin Richardson]

Here's my favorite Norton-ism. I had 2005 installed for a while before I got sick of it. I keep my start menu nice and neat, with five entries under "All Programs"..."Accessories", "Administrative Tools", "Applications", "Games" and "Startup". Norton installs a folder under "All Programs". Guess what happens if you move it or even rename it? Norton won't start when you reboot, and coughs up an error message on startup. It doesn't tell you that the shortcuts missing either, its something about not being able to repair something. Here's Symantec's "fix":
Non-fix
That pretty much sealed the deal for me. Hmmm, huge memory footprint, craptastic GUI, nag screens, inconvenient automatic scans, lockups, missed viruses, and now this? Yeah, no thanks.
At least if AntiVir misses a virus you get what you paid for! For $50 you should get more than NAV or McAfee offer.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

This thread has my head spinning.

I own Norton 2005 and have had
absolutely no problems though I
am not fond of its memory usage.

Okay, so we have this FREE antivirus
called AVG which is far less taxing
on your system, costs nothing, but
is only rated at 69% for detecting
viruses (which isn't great).

Alright...so we try another FREE
program called ANTIVIR, which has
a higher detection rate (85%) but
has a lousy interface and no
auto-updates. This is something
that, if worst comes to worst, I
can handle.

It seems like the best program is
the Kaspersky, which sports a nice
interface and has auto-updates -- but
once again we are back to square one
with its fairly high ram usage factor.

So, it's very clear to me that there
is absolutely no winner here when it
comes to anti-virus software.

Frankly, I just want to get rid of
Norton (and GOBACK which is an extreme
ram burden) and get a simple yet reliable
anti-virus application.

Will continue to read your reports.

 

[Marvin Richardson]

Ron, I wouldn't worry too much about how much it uses. You are going to have a minimum of 2GB, right? I've got 2GB on my Dell XPS, 3.2 GHz P4, and I never have any slowdowns, even if I'm encoding video, ripping CDs and surfing the web at the same time. My big gripes with NAV is how it takes over your system and is so intrusive. The memory footprint kind of seals the deal. If you want to make sure you don't get a virus, get Kaspersky. If you aren't that concerned but want some protection, use AntiVir. It may be ugly, but it does a good job. I'm just tired of paying for antivirus programs, but if I do, I'd subscribe to Kaspersky. Never used it personally, but have a couple of friends who do, and I've seen it in action.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Marvin,

So you highly recommend trashing my Norton
and going with Kapersky?

Okay, you sold me. When I get my new computer
I will do this.

Another huge mistake I made was NORTON GOBACK.
It has saved my butt many times, but now that
I have a MAXTOR ONE TOUCH backup, there is no
need for this memory-hogging program.

I can imagine once I dump Norton AV and
GOBACK that my computer will be light years
faster.

Thanks for the advice.

 

[Greg*go]

 

[Joshua Clinard]

I switched from Norton to McAfee Viruscan 9 a year ago and couldn't be happier. It has a very small memory footprint, unlike Norton. I have never gotten a virus since switching. With Norton, I cam accross virius quite frequently, and sometimes it couldn't remove them. McAfee never has that problem. It is also very good at detecting and removing trojans, spyware and malware. I don't even need Ad-Aware or Spybot anymore since installing McAfee.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Greg,

There was a chart posted on the first page
of this thread that compared antivirus products.

 

[Marvin Richardson]

Actually, according to this page, McAfee has the biggest memory footprint of the programs tested.
McAfee was just as annoying to me as NAV. And at least with 8 Ad-aware and Spybot both found things when McAfee was running.

 

[Alf S]

If you use the 2003 or earlier version...be sure to download and use this or you may get a buggy uninstall.

removal tool

 

[Joshua Clinard]

Visuscan 9 uses less than a MB of memory. Norton used about 8 MB IIRC. Viruscan never slowed down my computer at all, Norton did.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Joshua,

Would you whole-heartedly recommend McAfee
Viruscan 9 as a purchase?

There are so many different opinions on this subject
matter and I need to pick one when I decide to
dump Norton next month.

Need the best virus scanner that does the job
with the least taxation on a system.

Me thinks there is no Holy Grail, but I have
always heard good things about McAffee.

Thanks

 

[Marvin Richardson]

No antivirus program uses less than 1 MB of RAM. Maybe one of the five processes McAfee runs was using that, but no way was the whole shebang using that little. McAfee is the biggest RAM hog there is.
http://www.schadentech.com/Reviews/A...conclusion.htm
Bloatware to the extreme. Of course, when you've got 2GB that probably isn't the deciding factor.

 

[Greg*go]

Ron, from what I've read the past few weeks, it seems the best method is a good anti-virus program (just about any of the ones mentioned here) and a good anti-trojan program.

The larger debate throughout this thread was amount of resources each program uses, auto-updates, and the easiness of using the interface.

Most of us touting our own AV program do so because we've never had a virus on our PC while they have been running. I consider having this many good options a good thing.

That techsupportalert article I linke to earlier (How Good are Free Security Programs?) did a pretty good job of explaining how nothing is completely foolproof. The best paid AV programs only slightly outperformed the best free AV programs in a test with realistic situations.

To strengthen the layering method, I should comment that this past week, I downloaded Microsoft Anti-Spyware onto 2 friends PCs, and in both instances it found 1 trojan (I forget if it was the same trojan) on each PC. One had Norton Corporate and the other had a version of McAfee that was up-to-date. I'm not knocking these 2 AV programs, it's just proof positive that things get by even the best programs.