There are a number of versions of Symantec Corporation’s Norton Antivirus platform available in the market. This review is of the 16.0 Version 2009, which was released in September 2008, where more than 300 modifications were carried out on the format present in previous versions, to set at rest a number of performance concerns.
- Installation– Time taken to install the program has been vastly reduced from that taken by earlier versions and has been benchmarked at 47 seconds by Passmark Software Pty. Ltd.
- Features and Ease of Use– Tasks consuming system resources are carried out only when the computer is in idle mode by the new ‘Smart Scheduler’ feature, while the ‘Silent Mode’ allows the user to continue with his work on the computer while the Antivirus package does its work in the background, almost unnoticed.
- Performance– Virus scanning can be either ‘full system’ or ‘quick’. There is a new feature called ‘Norton Insight’ which isolates trusted (whitelisted) files that do not need to be scanned at all or very rarely. Using this feature can greatly reduce scan time to less than half what it would take for a full scan, which may take up to an hour or more, depending on how many files are scanned (i.e. used space). The new ‘Pulse Update’ feature constantly updates the computer with the latest protection against the latest viruses. The CPU utilisation and the program’s CPU usage are displayed on the CPU usage monitor while settings and security status display on a single main interface. There are savings in cost because of Norton’s recent provision for allowing free downloading of its latest and updated versions of the Antivirus programme, provided the subscription is current. Installation size of 127 to 150 MB disc space (on different versions of Windows packs) is comparatively good and memory usage is minimal, between 5 to just over 6 MB. While reboot and file conversion times were considerably less than any other competitor, application launch time was more than at least 3 others. The effectiveness of the program has been certified by the likes of ICSA Labs, Virus Bulletin, West Coast Labs and AV Comparatives.
- Help and Support– This is available through email, chat and limited phone support. There seems to be some improvement in the customer care provided by Norton over what had been experienced earlier. Email replies are usually within 24 hours.
- Other Issues – The absence of firewalls, antispam and other features is a let down. Another disappointment is that the program is good for only one installation, whereas Norton Internet Security can be used on 3 computers. Product support, un-installation procedure and faulty updates have been issues in past versions and it remains to be seen whether all the kinks have been sorted out in this one.
To conclude, the 2009 version of Norton Antivirus is the best yet and comes out on top of most competitors. However, it might be worth the wait for the 2010 version (17.0) with a number of updates including ‘SONAR 2’ and ‘Autospy’, which is ready for commercial release.