RE: Norton

From: Ken Gardner (KenGardner_at_discussions.microsoft.com)
Date: 02/13/05 

Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2005 16:53:02 -0800

Norton Internet Security's main components are an antivirus program, an
antispam program, and a firewall. The Norton antivirus program is
excellent, and you won't go wrong using it. The antispam program is very
good, although maybe not the very best one you can get.

As third party firewalls go, Norton's is very good as well. The biggest
difference between the Norton firewall and the Windows firewall is that the
Windows firewall blocks only inbound communications (e.g. from the Interent
to your computer) other than those in response to something you do (e.g.
download e-mail or search the web), while Norton will also block suspicious
outbound communications (e.g. from your computer to the Internet, initiated
by crudware such as a Trojan or worm or spyware). As such, the Norton
firewall is more secure than the Windows firewall.

However, the additional security that comes with NIS comes at the cost of a
hit on performance and other problems, some of which I experienced myself
when using Norton and some I have read about over the Internet. [Note: In
fairness, some people report that they have not noticed such problems.]
Moreover, Symantec products are notoriously difficult to uninstall if you
later decide to switch to another vendor, such as Trend Micro or Computer
Associates.

If you educate yourself on how to keep rogue crudware off your system in the
first place, keep Windows XP up to date with regular updates (including SP2),
 and also regularly use a good standalone antivirus program and good
antispyware software, you don't need to sacrifice performance or risk other
problems by resorting to intrusive third party software like NIS. I
currently use the Trend Micro standalone antivirus program (a compoment of
Trend Micro 2005 -- you don't have to install the firewall or other
components with the antivirus program), the Windows SP2 firewall, and the
Microsoft Beta spyware program, and have had no crudware problems to speak
of. For extra assurance if you want it, I would also suggest Ad Aware SE,
which you can download for free at www.lavasoft.de.

Ken

 

"Geoff A." wrote:

> I've recently been advised via these newsgroups to ditch most aspects of
> Systemworks (possibly excluding the AV) and use win XP's own utilities, as
> well as other free anti spyware and anti adware programs.
> Can someone also please advise on Norton Internet security Professional?
> Should I be using this? If I don't, what will protect me from whatever it
> does????
> Thanks.
>
>
>