Thursday, December 16, 2010

Antivirus Reviews - How Does Norton Antivirus Compare?

By Stan Stewart


When it comes to selecting the best antivirus software that's out there and features the most optimum benefits and results, it can be hard to know how to weigh one product against the rest of the pack. However, the main question that seems to be asked: is Norton Antivirus firewall software the best protection available?

Despite its well-known reputation, Norton's 2010 competition seems to be pretty fierce this year, with various overall ratings appearing to be all over the place in terms of each program's protection, features, ease of installation, customer service and price. Some of its most-mentioned contenders are that of Kapersky, Panda and ESET NOD32 Antivirus 4.

So how all do they rate against each other?

Taking the initiative to add to their already reliable product, Norton has gone ahead and added more speed and better performance for viruses and spyware protection. Another feature that seems to be often discussed is the rapid update, which Norton has designed to update virus definitions every 5-15 minutes, providing quick response time and faster detection and also removal of threats. In fact, it ranked as one of the highest in terms of malware detection and removal, although it fell a tad lower than Kapersky's anti-spyware protection. Norton also kept ahead of the game through their excellent customer service through means of free chat and phone support. Another well-mentioned feature that Norton's thrown at the competition is their near-transparent scanning, allowing for smoother running of other computer programs.

Kapersky is likely one of the more expensive of software programs available, losing some favor where price is concerned, but it is also a highest-ranking option when it comes down to overall performance, protection and features. With its protection features for removal and detection, only Norton outranks it by a minimal degree; however, the software makes up for it with its superior anti-spyware protection that topped Norton's by just a hair. Although it lacked more so than Panda's anti-phishing features, Kapersky ranked as one of the highest in terms of customer service support and user-friendliness.

While ranking fairly low in terms of customer service and user-friendliness amongst several different ratings, the ESET NOD32 Antivirus 4 soft did manage to impress when it came down to the little amount of memory used during scanning, making for smoother and less-hindered performance on PCs while running other basic programs. It appears that, even with great improvements, ESET received an average rating when it came to detection and removal, but still faired lower than some of the competition. ESET also lost a few points due to only having daily virus definition updates, versus Kapersky's hourly and Norton's rapid pulse updating. Cost, depending on what or how you want to protect your data, is average.

Panda's Antivirus Pro 2010 is slowly moving up the ranks, with this particular version offering numerous extra features, as well as supporting protection for instant messenger users. Overall, they gained average ratings in malware and spyware protection, though still hanging short from the rest of the group and only having daily updates such as ESET's. They also gained a little disfavor for not having chat options with customer service, but rather only email and phone, though still got good reviews and ratings on overall customer service. They still prove to be a good choice for scanning, price, and its user-friendly features.

So is Norton Antivirus firewall software the best protection available? As ratings show, Norton still continues to be reliable, coming in closely to Kapersky and its slightly superior protection. While falling behind in some features or means of protection, they still remain ahead of most of the pack. However, for those who are considering protecting several computers at once, you may wish to consider getting the bundled Norton 360 due to its three licenses and even more protective features.




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