Pros and Cos (Norton vs Kaspersky ) ?

Maguscreed said:

pincushion said:

baxxter said:

I decided to use NIS 2011 ,thanks all :)

I can understand why some people seem to have a hatred of Norton - perhaps they were bitten as babies - but it can be tamed and is quite effective at keeping malware off your system if you aren't too reckless and disable everything. I have used it for quite a time and haven't had any problems. Have used 360 which is probably the dumbed down version but am going back to NIS 2011. I don't use the Identity Protection, Backup or the PC Tuneup apart from the Startup manager, preferring other means of doing these. I tweak the Settings to disable much in there as some I think can be quite intrusive and usually set it to Silent Mode all day once it has updated and do a Quickscan either at same time or later. Seems to behave well enough for me but it has to be controlled properly.

I suppose it's all valid points you make, but what you have to consider, is that in my case at least it doesn't have anything to do with a failure in protection from either of the two. It has to do with the massive amount of machines I've worked on over the years that are suffering debilitating bsod's because of one or the other of these two software suites (the free av's aren't exempt from this either)
The reason I openly suggest MSE is not because I think it offers the best protection, that would be ridiculous given the available data on the subject. I suggest it because it's about 90% less likely to result in problems given my own personal experience.

...and while granted I'm sure these two av's work fine for many people ( I don't suspect they would still be in business were this not the case) I've seen way too many nightmare scenarios involving them over the years to just recommend either of them openly to 'average' level users.

Hi

I know I am not your typical user and am sufficiently knowledgable to adjust all my software to do what I want but I have never had BSODs on this system or on my XP system that was due to Norton. In fact I rarely if ever had them. I think Norton is bloated and does try to cater for the lowest skilled users but properly configured it does an effective job and is not too intrusive. Like all anti-malware software over the years it has its good and bad eras but overall it has maintained its reputation for an effective integrated solution to avoid malware. I do suspect that other things often cause the problems that are put down to Norton though. Mainly my system doesn't suffer from such problems so perhaps that is where I have had so good an experience. It is the only anti-malware I use for online protection.

I would never say that it is the best since I have not used many of the other good anti-malware software that is available whether free or paid but it has worked for me even if it is annoying having to customise it so much to make it less intrusive.

Doesn't almost everyone get a free antivirus with their service provider? I'll bet if you go to whoever you get your internet from's website that you'll see a link to an antivirus solution they offer. It's in their best interests to keep zombie servers off their network. QWest used to offer OneCare - don't know about now. Comcast offers Norton 360 v5.

By the way, since I've installed Norton, I know it must be my imagination, but my computer seems to be faster, which makes no sense, but things are snappier. And the way it handles memory is fantastic. It uses almost no memory (2600 K), which is as good as Panda's netbook version. It also uses the cloud like Panda, and the detection rates are always better than KIS. KIS updates are a pain whereas I've never seen Norton do anything, everything is done in the background, including system optimization. But when I look at the log, there it is... It's defragged, cleaned the registry, reported system errors all while I stepped away from my computer to grab a beer or give my girlfriend some attention. In this day and age of advanced computing, there's no reason you should ever have to "maintain" a computer manually.

No :P

I just looked at my Norton log this morning and somehow it managed to do a complete scan yesterday in-between my work sessions. I'm looking at my memory usage all the time because I do computer simulations of manufacturing lines, and I need that memory and quick response. It never interfered with me. Sorry fellas, but I'm a fan of Norton, at least for now. In short, it stays completely out of sight and does its job plus what I was using Advanced System Care for which DID interfere with me constantly.