Norton Internet Security 2009 - Norton AntiVirus 2009 Review

Norton Internet Security 2009
Norton AntiVirus 2009

Over the course of several years, I would dutifully get the latest Norton antivirus software and load it up for a while, only to wind up throwing F-bombs around at some point when I was trying to uninstall it. It was insidious, with tentacles deep into my system, and enterprising software engineers out there were forced to come up with independent solutions to root all the nasty bits out. Even then, you would find stray pieces in your registry or who knows where else.

And the reason for every single uninstall was always the same – the Norton software slowed you down. Sometimes way down.
Especially as an on-and-off gamer, specifically one who has always preferred to take his gaming online, anything that slows down my system or impedes my Internet access in any way was simply not acceptable.

Which brings me to the Norton Internet Security 2009 and AntiVirus 2009.
After being asked if I wanted to check them out, I had that same old nag. Will I run into the problems I used to have? Has there been enough complaining to get Symantec’s attention?

Looking at the packaging for both of them, it becomes obvious that they’re dealing with a perception issue. Hanging conspicuously under the product name are the words “Engineered for Speed.”

A good idea, but anybody can stick a blurb in the box copy. There was only going to be one way to find out if these were better products, and I am a curious beast, so I stuck the first disc in the tray.
Installing something takes on a rhythm of its own, one that we all know.

You pop in the disc and up comes the Microsoft installer, you click a few yes bubbles, agree to a bunch more stuff, and wait. Then you reboot, watch all the old-school boot up, sit through the Windows splash and grit your teeth while you wait some more.

But this time it was different.

Symantec isn’t using the Microsoft installer, they’re using their own. And it takes a minute. Really. About one minute. With no reboot.

Now, at this point, I don’t know much more about the Norton packages than I knew two minutes before, but I already like them. Maybe that wasn’t just PR hyperbole on the box. A little Googling reveals that Symantec blames Microsoft for some of the reputation for Norton’s bloat in the past, and this new installer, all stripped down and very, very clean, has me convinced that they might be on to something.

Once into the interface, another aspect of their new commitment to speed is revealed. The main menu is much stripped down as well, with options for basic configuration and tool choice never more than one click away. It’s much easier and more obvious to set your specific level of protection. Pop-ups tips are fairly clear, and there’s not enough on the screen to confuse someone who simply wants to make the simplest choices for their system and be done with it. Another great idea is the removal of the constant nags for other Norton products. In prior versions, people who didn’t have the best grasp on their technology would be confused, assuming that they still didn’t have everything they needed, that there was something missing from the software they had just installed. People who did know what they wanted had already bought it, and they didn’t need to see an ad for anything else. Nobody is going to miss those baked-in ads.

One of the best features of the Internet Security package is the way it decides what is and isn’t malware. When your system is scanned, Norton then goes out and compares what it sees in your computer with a whitelist of files in use on other people’s computers. If Norton doesn’t recognize something, instead of putting up a red flag and causing you some concern that you might not need to have, the software assumes that the file in question must be okay and ignores it. If very few other users have that unknown file, you’ll likely get a warning.

The old method of updating virus and malware definitions is gone (goodbye LiveUpdate), and is replaced by a much more active definition retrieval structure. Norton literally updates its definitions every few minutes, and you can see this in the interface, if you’re the kind of person who needs to know these things down to the second. (I just checked, and it last updated 29 seconds ago.)

I don’t have enough other antivirus software to make an accurate comparison with Norton, but a little looking around online shows me that Norton is among the top rated for rooting out even the nastiest viruses and much the same with the speed of scanning, picking through fat hard drives much faster than I remember from years back.

I also haven’t had enough time to really test the edges of the IdentitySafe and AntiPhishing aspects of Norton, being a fairly careful surfer. Casual examination suggests that it runs quietly in the background until you bump into something that triggers an alert, and it shuts you down before you get a chance to hurt yourself.

The only problem I had with either package was, naturally, once I started running a few games. Even though I had opened up a hole for World of Warcraft to slip through the firewall, I had to fiddle around stopping and starting the program to get a connection, and the same thing happened with Call of Duty 4. The problems didn’t last long, however, and free tech support was there if I wasn’t able to figure it out on my own. As usual, the best place to check for help is the users forum, as there’s bound to be somebody else sharing your pain out there in the world.
After a few weeks of use, I haven’t had any problems at all, no obvious slowdowns or hitches, and no annoyances in terms of configuring. It looks like Symantec has really responded to their customers here and come up with a solution for every complaint from the previous versions. In my estimation, Norton 2009 is highly recommended.