Lets start with the headlines
The good: Norton AntiVirus 2009 has a leaner footprint, improved speed, white listing, and other technologies to mark clean files as trusted, and free technical support.
The bad: Despite its free telephone support, Norton AntiVirus 2009 lacks adequate online technical support and, intentional or not, it drives users to its paid technical support services.
The bottom line: Norton AntiVirus 2009 hits all the right security notes, and its superior protection technologies might even win back some jaded anti-Symantec folks, though for some, technical support may continue to frustrate.
Specifications: License qty: 1 user; License type: Complete package; Min Operating system: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic, Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2, Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition SP2, Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium, Microsoft Windows Vista Business, Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate, Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition SP2
Now lets move on the detailed speculations
*Installation
*On my system, I downloaded Norton AntiVirus 2009 and installed the product within a minute. Instead of relying upon Microsoft’s installer, which Symantec has blamed for much of its past product bloat, the company started over, designing its own installer. There is the added advantage that as criminals target MSI files(say to prevent you from installing a security defense product on your already compromised machine) Symantec won’t be affected-for now. The new installer process works fast, borrowing streaming technology from its Norton Ghost product. On Windows Vista(The more resource hog operating system than xp), I were up and running in one minute and without a reboot
Rating:
Features: 8.0
Performance: 8.0
Service and support: 8.0
Overall score: 8.0(4.0 stars) Average user rating: 3.0 stars out of 21 reviews
Product summary
The good: Norton AntiVirus 2009 has a leaner footprint, improved speed, white listing, and other technologies to mark clean files as trusted, and free technical support.
The bad: Despite its free telephone support, Norton AntiVirus 2009 lacks adequate online technical support and, intentional or not, it drives users to its paid technical support services.
The bottom line: Norton AntiVirus 2009 hits all the right security notes, and its superior protection technologies might even win back some jaded anti-Symantec folks, though for some, technical support may continue to frustrate.
Specifications: License qty: 1 user; License type: Complete package; Min Operating system: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic, Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2, Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition SP2, Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium, Microsoft Windows Vista Business, Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate, Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition SP2;;
Price range:$24.88 -$52.05
Symantec has been listening to its users, and this year the company delivers a slimmed-down and faster Norton AntiVirus 2009. Almost all the security vendors have recognized the changing threat landscape and have rethought traditional protection. We especially like the Insight feature, which identifies "trusted" files and applications and doesn’t waste time rescanning them unless there’s been a change. No other product does this. The redesigned logic behind Norton AntiVirus 2009 clearly shows in CNET performance testing: it is faster and considerably lighter than last year’s version. Norton continues to win awards in third-party effectiveness testing. Lagging behind, though, is Symantec’s technical support. While Norton users now have free telephone support, Symantec still doesn’t provide enough of a knowledge base, or even an adequate user’s manual. Once again, this year it emphasizes its premium services a bit too much. That said, Norton AntiVirus 2009 presents a remarkable transformation of a product and is worth a second look. Installation
On our test system, we downloaded Norton AntiVirus 2009 and installed the product within a minute. Instead of relying upon Microsoft’s installer, which Symantec has blamed for much of its past product bloat, the company started over, designing its own installer. There is the added advantage that as criminals target MSI files(say to prevent you from installing a security defense product on your already compromised machine) Symantec won’t be affected-for now. The new installer process works fast, borrowing streaming technology from its Norton Ghost product. On both Windows Vista and Windows XP test machines, we were up and running in one minute and without a reboot. Should you want to uninstall, Norton includes an uninstall option. In the past, Norton left a mess. Now, after rebooting our machine, what is left behind is licensing information. Interface
Speaking of a mess, I didn’t like last year’s colors on the user interface. This year’s redesign is much cleaner and more sophisticated, one befitting a major security product, and the colors used on the Interface can be changed if you want. Also gone are the tabs reminding you that you can purchase other Norton products. Specific tools can be turned on and off easily without diving into the configuration settings. The configuration settings page itself is always one click below the main page. The interface also offers a pop-up dialogs to explain specific terms, although thorough explanations of the choice users have in changing the settings is still lacking
Features
Norton has, in the past, included some sophisticated technology from its enterprise products, which is good because it’s cutting-edge, but it’s also bad, because it doesn’t necessarily integrate with the product, nor is it necessary. In Norton AntiVirus 2009, they seem to have found the right balance. Whitelisting, the buzzword of security products for 2009, is included, and by marrying it with other technologies, Symantec makes it more suited for the user. Files on a whitelist are deemed trusted, and thus do not need to be scanned as often. Not all "safe files" make it onto the whitelist. For those, Norton uses a community process, called Insight, similar to that used by other security products such as Haute Secure.