Norton 2001, much less draining (Symantec Norton AntiVirus 2001)

Member Name: Hope

Product:	Symantec Norton AntiVirus 2001
Date:	20/11/00 (218 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Does not slow the system

Disadvantages: Repeated virus-like activity alerts

After suffering abysmally with McAfee, I reluctantly paid out for the latest Norton software and the result was surprisingly good for three reasons.

Firstly, I run resource-hungry voice recognition software which is not really compatible with resource-hungry antivirus software. In the case of McAfee, this meant that my system ran very slowly and with so many crashes that I was often tempted to disable the antivirus software altogether despite the risks. I specifically bought Norton Antivirus 2001 because it claims to be far less draining on the system and this is certainly true. I can run it all the time, alongside my other software, and not notice any difference in speed at all.

Secondly, it is very much easier to use than McAfee. Whether technically minded or not (and I am not), it is very easy to adjust the settings and be fully aware of what is being checked and when.

Thirdly, it is very reliable for finding viruses and providing updates. It is even possible to set it for automatic live updates and adding new virus definitions whenever you are online.

On the downside, it is quite expensive and software updates are only available free for one year. I seem to remember with my old Norton version 4 that updates were unlimited, although that does sound particularly generous.

There is, however, one feature which I have found very irritating, although I can understand its function. This concerns "virus-like activity" alerts, which result in a black screen with the message that a virus-like activity is occurring. The user then has to decide whether to click on "continue" or "stop", depending on whether the activity appears to be legitimate or not. This was happening a lot on my machine, for example when I close a programme such as WinTV and even during boot up, which was particularly irritating in that I could not leave the machine to boot on its own.

Although I guessed that
there would be some way around this, I feared that it would be beyond my capabilities. However, I am very pleased to say that I have worked out the answer and it is not at all difficult! As long as you are completely sure that the action is legitimate, it can be excluded from virus scanning via "Options" in the Norton Antivrus window.

So having sorted out this one gripe, I highly recommend this antivirus software to anyone who has not yet bought any, and particularly to anyone who is keen not to slow down their system.

Summary: