Norton Anti-Virus: Scrap It
For years now Norton Anti-Virus has been criticized for its remarkable ability to slow down any windows machine that runs it to the extent that it becomes a five minute job to check your emails. It comes with many other faults as well and I’ve found some eye opening facts online that are backed up by various sources. One such source indicates that Norton uses 100% of his computers processing power! If you’re thinking of switching anti-virus software this is a must read!
The major problem with Norton anti-virus is its power draining ability that can lead to turtle like speeds in windows and sometimes it can lead to a complete system crash. Norton runs from the same folders as some windows features and this means that the programs often bump into each other in their day to day jobs. Norton claim that the software “uses less than 8 MB of system memory” which is true on a brand new machine. However, conducting our own investigation, with 2 tabs open in Firefox 3, Microsoft Word, MSN messenger and the default windows vista system processes Norton used a whopping 95% of CPU usage which is an awful lot when it claims to be light weight.
It’s also bad news if you decide to do a full system scan with Norton. It took over 30 minutes to scan 30 GB of data and when we planted 12 viruses of varying age and strength Norton only found 7 of them. This is a big disappointment from software that claims to be so good. Its quick scan took just 10 minutes but compared to some of its competitors (avast!, AVG etc.) Norton was slower if by only a few minutes.
A user at Tech spot, a relatively respected internet forum in many fields, described an incident where Norton failed to even start properly and even left the error when it was uninstalled. After more research on the topic it would appear that the uninstaller included with Norton doesn’t even remove the whole product when you use it! You have to download a special tool from http://service1.symantec.com/Support/tsgeninfo.nsf/docid/2005033108162039. It seems as though they are quite happy to also leave a mess on the computer if someone tries to remove it!
It’s not all bad news though, there are other anti-virus programs on the market and some of the most effective can be used on a home licence completely free of charge. Most use less computer power than Norton as well which is an added bonus. The best we’ve tested is Avast! found at www.avast.com. It is free for home use and uses just 8% of the CPU. It also boasts excellent features and the boot time scan which scans for viruses before they can hide themselves is a great tool.
Norton is certainly losing its market share at the moment and it needs to pull a faster version of its software out of the bag quickly before it becomes obsolete to faster and cheaper alternatives.
- A little note to leave you with, the head of Symantec (who make Norton) uses a Mac (see http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/roryreid/0,139101702,49299112,00.htm). Macs don’t get viruses and maybe that just shows their own faith in their product.