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Norton AntiVirus (2014)
Editor Rating: Excellent (4.5)
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$50.00
When a security company has a name with worldwide recognition, something like 'Norton' for example, a full-on name-change would be crazy. However, Symantec hasn't hesitated to tweak parts of its antivirus product's name. The standalone antivirus briefly vanished from the product line, then returned at Norton Antivirus Basic. With this year's updates, the product now goes by Symantec Norton Antivirus Plus. It merits the 'plus' in its name, with bonus features that include online backup, spam filtering, and an intrusion protection system that beats most security suites. It's an effective antivirus, but its pricing is impractical, as I'll explain. Most users who want Symantec protection should opt for one of the Norton 360 suite products.
At $59.99 per year for a single license, Norton is expensive. The most common price point for standalone antivirus products is just under $40. More than a dozen of the products I've reviewed hit this price point— among them Bitdefender, Trend Micro, and Webroot—and many offer three licenses for $59.99. McAfee AntiVirus Plus nominally costs the same as Norton, but that price lets you install protection on every device in your household.
In addition, Norton doesn't offer multi-license pricing. If you want to protect two PCs, you buy two licenses or, more likely, upgrade to Symantec Norton 360 Deluxe, which costs less for five licenses than twice the price of the antivirus.
SEE ALSO: The Best Free Antivirus Protection for 2019
This product replaces Norton Antivirus Basic (though existing users of that product can keep getting antivirus updates), and it's an improvement in several ways. The previous product seemed aimed at pushing users toward the suites, with strong limitations on tech support. All it offered was a built-in diagnostic system and support via online forums, with the company's Virus Protection Promise notably absent.
Norton Antivirus Plus brings back full tech support, along with that promise. If Norton can't remove a malware infestation even after you follow all recommended steps, experts will log into your computer remotely and fix the problem. In the unlikely event they can't sort things out, you can apply for a refund. This promise does require a commitment on your part, in that it only applies if you've signed up for automatic renewal.
Every Norton product, starting with this one, now includes online backup. With the standalone antivirus, you just get 2GB of online storage, but that may be enough to securely back up your most important files.
My Norton
With the new product line, Symantec emphasizes the My Norton app, which helps you access all the elements of your Norton protection. An outdoor scene at left softens the view, much like the outdoor background in Panda Dome Essential and the rest of the current Panda product line. For this basic antivirus, there are just three items listed: Device Security, Cloud Backup, and Password Manager. Clicking Device Security opens the familiar Norton antivirus interface. I'll cover the other two components below.
The local antivirus looks much the same as the previous edition. The main window is mostly white, with text and icons in green and black. Big panels show your status in five areas: Security, Online Safety, Backup, Performance, and More Norton. Rather than opening a new page, clicking one of these slides the panels down to reveal options for the clicked panel. For example, clicking Security displays icons for Scans, Live Update, History, and Advanced.
After installation, be sure to run a Live Update. Even though the status panel indicated my protection updates were current, the Live Update found and installed several updates and a patch. You should also launch each of the browsers that you use and at least install the Norton Toolbar. You can also add Norton Safe Search, which marks dangerous search results; Norton Home Page, which puts Safe Search and a collection of quick links on your home page; and the Norton Password Manager.
Plenty of Scan Choices
When you click the big Security panel and then click Scan, you get the expected Quick, Full, and Custom scans choices, plus a lot more. For starters, if you think you may have malware even after a scan, you can launch a fresh scan with the aggressive Symantec Norton Power Eraser tool. There's a link in the final report screen for each regular scan that links to Power Eraser; click it if you suspect the cleanup wasn't complete.
On my standard clean test system, a full scan took four and a half hours, longer than any recent product and about six times the current average of 45 minutes. On the one hand, that's a very long time. On the other, you really only need a full scan right after installation, to root out any preexisting conditions.
Free Virus Protection For Windows 10
The Norton Insight scan checks all your files and identifies those that are known and trusted and therefore don't need to be included in the antivirus scan. That scan ran in seconds on my test system and flagged 88 percent of the files as trusted. A subsequent full scan finished in a bit over an hour, thanks to the Insight scan. That's better, of course, but repeat scans with other products that optimize after the first scan have finished in minutes, not hours. ESET NOD32 Antivirus and Total Defense finished a repeat scan in about seven minutes, and Webroot took less than a minute.
If you run into any trouble at all with Norton, the Diagnostic Report scan may help you solve the problem. Even if it doesn't, the details from the report should help when you contact tech support about the difficulty.
Excellent Lab Test Results
Sure, your antivirus claims it will protect you, but how do you know it works? Most users aren't equipped to run a test, so we rely on independent labs around the world whose research experts do nothing but test and evaluate security programs. The labs choose the products they think are significant, and the security companies decide whether it's worthwhile to pay the testing fee, so when a product appears in reported results, you know it significant. All four of the labs I follow report on Norton, a clear indicator of its importance.
Testing experts at SE Labs capture real-world malicious websites and use a replay technique to hit each of the selected antivirus products with precisely the same attack. It's a labor-intensive process, which is why this lab typically tests only 10 products, or fewer. The lab offers certification at five levels: AAA, AA, A, B, and C. Like just over half the products in the latest test, Norton received AAA certification, as did several others, including Microsoft Windows Defender Security Center.
Where most of the labs report rating levels or numeric scores, MRG-Effitas uses something closer to a pass/fail system. Unless a product exhibits near-perfect protection, it simply fails. I follow two tests from this lab, one specific to banking Trojans and one covering a wide variety of malware types. Like half of tested products, Norton failed the banking Trojans test, a rare black mark. Avira, Bitdefender, ESET, F-Secure Anti-Virus, and Kaspersky passed.
In the full-spectrum malware protection test, it earned Level 1 certification, meaning that it completely fended off all malware attacks used in the test. Kaspersky, Bitdefender Antivirus Plus, and all other tested products managed Level 1 protection this time around.
Researchers at AV-Test Institute look at antivirus products from three different angles. Naturally, they rate the product's essential ability to protect against malware attack. But they also rate each product's effect on system performance, and they examine how successfully it avoids naming valid programs or websites as malicious (false positives). Products can earn three points for each of these criteria, for a maximum of 18 possible points. Along with F-Secure and McAfee, Norton earned a perfect 18 points in the most recent test.
A product that passes one of the many tests performed by the AV-Comparatives team receives Standard certification. Those that do better than the basics, or much better, can receive Advanced or Advanced+ certification. Norton participates in three of the four tests from this lab that I follow; it received one Advanced+ certification and two Advanced. Avast Free Antivirus and Bitdefender took Advanced+ in all four tests, while Avira and ESET managed three Advanced+ and one Advanced.
With all the different scoring systems, it's hard to get an overall feel for a product's lab results. I've devised an algorithm that maps all the results onto a 10-point scale and combines them to yield an aggregate score. Norton's aggregate score of 9.3 points is among the best, though a few others have done even better. Also tested by all four labs, Avira Antivirus Pro leads with 9.8 points, and Kaspersky comes close with 9.6. Bitdefender managed 9.7 based on tests from three labs.
Very Good Malware Protection
Even when the labs offer positive and plentiful results, I still like to get a feel for each product's malware protection skills using my own hands-on tests. My basic malware protection test starts when I open a folder containing a collection of samples that I collected and analyzes myself. Like most competing products, Norton started examining these samples right away. Rather than frantically popping up a notification for each detection, it simply displayed a notification that the Auto-Protect component was busy processing threats.
Some samples remained visible in Windows Explorer, but with a size of zero bytes. I verified that these files were effectively gone. In all, Norton eliminated 90 percent of the samples in this initial culling.
Norton caught most of the remaining samples when I launched them, in most cases eliminating the file so quickly that Windows was left displaying an error message. In the end, it detected 97 percent of the samples and scored 9.7 of 10 possible points. That's the second-best score seen with my current set of samples, beaten only by the perfect 10 point score earned by Webroot SecureAnywhere AntiVirus.
I maintain a second set of samples, copies of the main collection that I've modified by hand, so they don't match too-strict signature-based detection systems. I change each filename, tack zeroes onto the end to change the apparent size, and replace some non-executable bytes within the file. Norton wiped out most of these, leaving more of those zero-byte remnants.
With other products the hand-modified samples have brought me a very different experience. Panda's misses included two ransomware samples; Comodo missed a lot of the tweaked samples, including five in the ransomware category. In both cases, some or all of the hand-modified samples got past protection layers that should have neutralized them. Norton did miss wiping out a few of these on sight, but they were all the low-risk type usually identified as Potentially Unwanted Programs, not ransomware or anything virulent.
Those hand-analyzed samples from my malware collection necessarily stay the same for months, because it takes me weeks to prepare a new set. For a view on how each antivirus handles the most current malware, I start with a feed of recent malware-hosting URLs supplied by testing lab MRG-Effitas. Even though the URLs are no more than a few days old, I find that quite a few have gone dark since discovery. For those that still work, I note whether the antivirus prevents the browser from visiting the dangerous page, wipes out the malware payload, or does nothing at all. In summing up the results, I give equal credit for URL-blocking and for download-deletion.
Norton blocked some URLs by replacing the browser page with a big, red warning. It blocked others in a way that left the browser displaying an error, with a popup to explain what happened. But in many more cases, it permitted the download and then, after analysis, deleted it. Note that Norton's Download Insight checks every download and reports whether it's safe or unsafe.
In a very few cases, it reported that the download 'requires attention.' Clicking for more detail revealed that the File Insight reputation system found the file to be suspect based on things like its age and the number of times it's been seen. In almost every case, you should avoid launching any program that triggers a File Insight warning.
One way or another, Norton blocked 94 percent of the malware payloads from reaching the test system. That's quite good, but not the very best score in this test. F-Secure and Trend Micro Antivirus+ Security scored 99 percent, McAfee and Sophos got 97 percent, and Avira and ESET scored 96 and 95 percent respectively. Still, Norton is clearly in the winner's circle.
Best Free Antivirus For Windows 10Phishing Protection Success
Writing a malicious program that can steal personal data without triggering antivirus defenses is tough. Creating a website that looks like Wells Fargo or another bank and hoovering up the login credentials of hapless netizens who don't notice the fakery is easy. Phishing fraudsters put up fake versions of financial sites, online games, even dating sites, capturing as many passwords as they can before the site gets blacklisted. When it does, they just gin up another fake.
Because phishing sites are so ephemeral, a successful defense can't rely solely on blacklists. For testing purposes, I gather reported phishing URLs from sites that track such things, with an eye to those that haven't yet been analyzed. I launch each suspected fraud in a browser protected by the product I'm testing, and simultaneously in Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer, using just the phishing protection built into each browser. I discard any page that doesn't load correctly in all four browsers, and I verify that each page is a true phishing fraud, masquerading as a secure site and attempting to capture login credentials.
Last time I tested Norton, it earned a surprisingly poor score in this test—surprising because of its long history of antiphishing success. This time, it's back on track. It blocked access to known phishing sites, and to sites that its heuristic analysis determined to be fraudulent. In some cases, it let the page load but warned about identity threats. And in a few cases, its Scam Insight feature explained why you might want to avoid the page even though it's not provably fraudulent.
Using one technique or another, Norton detected 94 percent of the verified phishing frauds, which is quite good. However, Kaspersky Anti-Virus and McAfee detected 100 percent of the frauds, and a half-dozen others managed 97 percent or better. As with my malicious URL blocking test, Norton is among the winners, but not at the very top.
Unusual Protection Against Exploits
Firewall protection typically comes at the security suite level. The best suites go beyond basic firewall features to include active protection against network-based exploit attacks. Symantec does follow the crowd in reserving the full-scale firewall components for its suites, but surprisingly adds exploit protection at the standalone antivirus level. This component monitors network traffic for patterns matching exploit attacks and blocks them below the browser level. By default, it blocks all traffic from the attacking IP address for 30 minutes. I had to turn off that auto-block feature for my hands-on exploit testing.
This test uses exploits generated by the CORE Impact penetration tool. I launch about 30 exploits against the test system and note the security product's response. Norton detected and blocked 85 percent of these, identifying more than half the attacks by their official names. That's the same score as the last time I tested it, even though the set of exploits is slightly different, as I continually add new exploits and drop the oldest ones.
The only recent product that comes close to Norton's exploit-fighting power is Kaspersky Internet Security with 82 percent detection. Much of Kaspersky's detection took place when an exploit attempted to drop a malicious payload on the test system, well after the point where Norton prevented the attack. None of the rest did better than 60 percent, and many scored much lower. Note, too, that even though Norton didn't actively block a few of the exploits, they did no harm, because the test system is fully patched.
New Online Backup
In the previous Norton product lineup, only the top-tier suite came with a backup system. The current lineup gives you online backup at every level, starting with the standalone antivirus. Granted, you just get 2GB of online storage with the antivirus, but that may be enough to back up your most essential files. Backup serves as the ultimate security against ransomware and any other destructive attacks that might get past antivirus defenses.
Battlefield 4 ps3 download free. You do have to run through the setup process before you can benefit from the added security of keeping backups. The process starts with choosing what to back up, or accepting Norton's default choices, which include documents, pictures, contacts, and more, for all user accounts. If you're not sure, you won't go wrong accepting the defaults.
Next, you choose where to keep your backed-up files. Online storage is the default, but you must go online to activate it. Just click the link and log into your Norton account to activate. You can also choose any local, removable, or network drive to hold local backups. If you use a cloud storage service that shows up as a drive in Windows Explorer, you can even use that for a backup destination. The backup component in Kaspersky Total Security doesn't offer online backup, though you can link it to your Dropbox account. Because Norton supports multiple backup jobs, you can save your files in more than one location.
The final step involves defining when to run the backup job. If you're using online storage, just accept the default setting, Automatic. In this mode, Norton backs up new and changed files any time the computer is idle. For other backup jobs, you can choose a weekly, monthly, or manual schedule. Manual is the best choice if the destination is a removable drive, since you must make sure the drive is available first.
Windows 32 exe error. Now that you've defined what, where, and when to backup, finish up by clicking Save Settings and Run Backup. The initial backup may take a while, but once it's complete, Norton will keep things up to date in the background.
The backup system maintains multiple versions of files, giving you the option to go back to an earlier version as needed. The 10 previous versions of each file don't count against your 2GB total. Backups older than 60 days get purged, but the system always keeps the latest and next-latest versions.
Restoring backed-up files is just as simple. Choose a backup set, decide whether to restore all files or just some of them, and pick a destination for restored files. By default, they go to their original location, potentially overwriting existing copies, but you can select any folder you like for restored files. The program does warn (sensibly) against restoring into a non-default folder that is itself part of a backup set. When restoring individual files, you can choose a previous version, if available.
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Other Norton products offer significantly more storage for your backups. This ranged from 10GB for the one-license Norton 360 Standard suite to 500GB for the top-tier Norton 360 with LifeLock Ultimate Plus. Note, though, that there's no longer an option to simply buy more storage. If you need more, you must upgrade to the product tier that offers enough for you.
Bonus Features
Chances are good that your personal webmail provider filters out spam before you ever see it, and that your business email includes spam filtering at the server level. But if you're one of those rare few who still need a local spam filter, Norton can help. You don't even have to buy a security suite, as the antivirus includes spam filtering. Specifically, it filters out spam from POP3 email accounts and integrates with Microsoft Outlook. In Outlook, it automatically moves spam to the Norton AntiSpam folder. If you use a different email client, you must create a message rule to toss marked spam messages into their own folder. You can whitelist your correspondents, so their mail never gets marked as spam, or blacklist known spammers. It's a simple system, for those who need it.
When you install Norton AntiVirus, you also get Symantec Norton Password Manager, known in the past as Norton IDSafe. This isn't precisely a bonus, since you can get Norton Password Manager for free, but it's nice to have it integrated into My Norton. Read my review of the standalone product for full details. Briefly, Norton Password Manager handles basic password manager tasks such as password capture, password replay, and filling web forms, and it can sync across all your Windows, Android, and iOS devices. It includes an actionable password strength report with automatic password updates for popular sites. However, it lacks advanced features, among them secure password sharing, digital inheritance, and two-factor authentication.
Many programs configure themselves to launch every time you boot up the computer. Even when you're not using them, they're sucking up system resources while awaiting your call. Norton's Startup Manager lists those startup programs, along with information about resource usage and prevalence in the Norton community. You can reversibly disable any item so it doesn't launch at startup, or let it launch after a small delay.
Modern Windows versions work in the background to undo the disk fragmentation that naturally occurs as you create and delete files. Even so, Norton offers its own Optimize Disk feature. When you launch this component, it first analyzes the drive for fragmentation, only proceeding if defragging would be worthwhile.
If your PC seems sluggish, try launching the File Cleanup tool, but don't expect the thorough cleaning you get with a full-scale tune-up utility. The cleanup component simply deletes Windows temporary files and browser temporary files.
There Are Better Choices If You Want NortonPc Magazine Reviews Antivirus Software For Mac
Norton AntiVirus Plus earns excellent scores both in lab tests and in our hands-on tests. Its unusual exploit protection system outperforms security suites from other vendors. Bonus features include spam filtering, password management, and online backup. Even so, this probably isn't the Norton product you want. It costs significantly more than competing antivirus products and makes no provision for multiple installations. There's apparently a contingent of Norton fans who really, really don't want a full suite; this product is for them. Most users should pay the $40 difference to get Norton 360 Deluxe. That subscription gets you licenses to install protection on five Windows, macOS, Android, or iOS devices, as well as full VPN protection for five devices and 50GB of online backup storage.
If your aim is to protect your devices with an antivirus utility, as opposed to going for a full security suite, we have some suggestions. Three licenses for Bitdefender Antivirus Plus or Kaspersky Anti-Virus cost the same as one Norton license, and both get top marks from the independent labs. Webroot SecureAnywhere AntiVirus is the tiniest antivirus we've seen, and its unusual behavior-based detection system can even reverse ransomware damage. Convertisseur pdf word. Protecting one device with Norton costs the same as protecting every device in your household with McAfee AntiVirus Plus. These four are our Editors' Choice selections for standalone antivirus.
Symantec Norton AntiVirus PlusPc Magazine Reviews
Bottom Line: Symantec Norton AntiVirus Plus gets impressive scores in independent lab tests and our own hands-on tests, but it's expensive and doesn't offer volume pricing. If you want Norton protection, you're better off with one of Symantec's suite products.
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