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Norton AntiVirus (NAV, Also known as Symantec Antivirus) is the flagship product of Symantec Corporation and is one of the most widely installed anti-virus programs. The current version is Norton AntiVirus 2006.
Contents
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• 1 History
• 2 Criticisms
o 2.1 Resource hogging
o 2.2 Ineffectiveness
2.2.1 FBI/CIA cooperation
2.2.2 Slow response to viruses
o 2.3 Professional reviewers vs. actual opinions
• 3 Virus definitions
• 4 Product activation
• 5 External link
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History
Since its birth in 1990, over 100 million people around the world have used it. Early versions of Norton AntiVirus were integrated and took much from Central Point Anti-Virus (CPAV), which was acquired by Symantec in 1994. CPAV was also integrated into the Microsoft Anti-Virus utility.
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Criticisms
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Resource hogging
Despite its widespread adoption, it carries a reputation within parts of the computer enthusiast community as being slow and inefficient, difficult to uninstall, and ineffective. Some computer professionals have reported encountering machines infected with a virus despite having NAV installed and (in most cases) being fully up-to-date.
In addition, its GUI is considerably bogged down, especially on slower computers, because it is rendered using Internet Explorer's HTML engine instead of standard Windows graphic interface libraries.
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Ineffectiveness
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FBI/CIA cooperation
Norton AntiVirus was criticized in the past because of Symantec's policy that allows spy software (keyloggers/backdoors) of US secret services, such as the FBI (Magic Lantern) and the CIA (Oasis), to bypass Norton's malware detection [1] [2].
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Slow response to viruses
According to an article by the Washington Post, Norton Antivirus has one of the worst average response times for providing virus definition updates based on the worst virus outbreaks of 2005, lagging behind every major competitor, including Kaspersky, F-Secure, Sophos, AntiVir, Trend Micro, F-Prot, Panda, AVG, Avast, and McAfee.
For everyday viruses, according to an article by Eweek titled Why Is Symantec So Slow with Updates?, Symantec is the only vendor that provides virus definition updates on a weekly basis, as opposed to competitors such as McAfee that provides them on a daily basis or Sophos, Kaspersky or Panda that provide them several times a day.
However, Symantec does provide frequent beta and "Intelligent Updater" definitions in the form of manually downloadable 8-10MB packages (although impractical for daily use for even highly technical users) as well as daily updates for LiveUpdate Platinum customers such as large corporations and businesses.
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Professional reviewers vs. actual opinions
There are certainly a wide variety of opinions on the product, with professional reviewers tending to give it good rankings (often describing it as the best in its category), but actual user reviews tend to describe it as poor.
For instance, ZDNet's review of Norton AntiVirus 2004 rated the software "7.8 Very good", but the contributed user rating average was just "4.5 Mediocre" as of July 2005. Other reviewers have described the software as "memory hungry" or "system resource hogger", including the UK's PC Plus magazine review of the 2004 edition.
However, on November 9, 2005, CNet.com, a professional reviewer, gave Norton AntiVirus 2006 a score of 5.5 out 10 with an even worse average user rating of 3.2 out of 10.
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Virus definitions
Symantec's LiveUpdate provides virus definition updates, which enable Norton AntiVirus to detect more viruses. In order to receive updates, a valid subscription is required; an initial subscription good for one year (or 90 days for OEM copies) is included with the purchase. When a user's subscription expires, the user can still receive program updates (patches) for free but will not be able to download virus definitions updates without renewing his or her subscription or purchasing a new version of the Symantec product with a year of subscription included.
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Product activation
Beginning with Norton AntiVirus 2004, Norton Antivirus includes an anti-piracy feature called "Product Activation," which is similar to the activation process in Windows XP and Office XP. The activation process for Norton Antivirus 2004 and 2005 can be accomplished through two methods: over the Internet or by phone. The new version of Norton (2006) can be only activated over the Internet.
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