AntiVirus---NOD32 vs SYMANTEC CORP (vista)

shaba230

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Aug 3, 2006
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I have a full version of symantec corp for free from my school, but i'd have to buy nod32, which i'm okay with if you think it's that much better.....so which do you think I'm best off with.

Everything I've read seems to point towards nod32, but I guess I'm just to hard headed to think that Symantec, this huge company, doesn't have a better product...overall.

Should I just purchase nod32 and hope that symantec comes out with a better product then go back to them? Should i stick with my free symantec corp and just call it a day because I don't do any crazy hacker things??

I'm going to be using a firewall too btw...once I see zonealarm pro or outposted come out with something stable(ZA) or something that is'nt such a a resource hog/compatible with Vista (outposted)
 

joke

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May 15, 2005
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I don't know what nod32 is. I've used both NIS 2007 and Norton 360. Both have been fine with both Vista 32 & 64. I had NIS 2006 with remaining months on my subscription - when I went to Vista it was a free upgrade to use 2007 (you always get upgrades as long as you have a subscription, its just a simple download). After that I purchased the 360 upgrade (was going to use their backup package but decided not to). I use all of the other features, including active protection and the fw.

I can't tell you what is better (sorry) but I can tell you that when I was working on a university network, using Norton - I never got a virus of any kind and nothing was able to get through my firewall. I had a friend that was just walking down the hall with a floppy and caught 1 virus and had two trojans on his and his wife's system that same evening! j/k

fwiw, both corporations I regularly work with (both fortune 20) require Norton Enterprise on all machines that hook-up to their intranets (which alone was a good enough reason for me to use on my personal systems - I wind up with the same profiles but they usually get notifications a day or so before me).

Also, there are plenty of free virus pkgs and many here like them because it saves them $3/mo! That could be extremely important to you as a student but for me, I figure I'll just smoke a packs less per month just because I am more relaxed - ymmv.

good luck
 

SkullPlot

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NOD32 (which I'd say use their suite package, Smart Security instead as it has a firewall + other sweet things) is 10x better in every aspect over Symantec. Symantec is a huge company only because they have a cool looking GUI and massive user-fan base due to their early advertising "back in the day"

Everyone deep into the Security and anti-Spyware/Virus/Malware of any sort community knows that Norton is a virus in itself. One of the biggest and well known features of it's own virus used to be a rootkit of which made Norton one of the most impossible to remove systems for virus protection ever until they came out with a self-uninstallation kit for their Symantec products. Another flaw of their so-called "protection" is they on average have a ~14% catch rate on Zoo viruses (new, on the wild, and not in the subscription database yet) because their heuristics simply SUCK. NOD32 have a +74% catch rate thanks to a module called ThreatSense(tm) and it completely owns all the competition when it comes to heuristics (catching viruses prior to/while running that are or possibly are not in your "known-virus list")

Simply put. ESET NOD32 > Symantec and ESET Smart Security > NOD32 (smart security has NOD32 built in + all the other cool stuff :D )

P.S. Symantec don't care about false-positives and have been known to delete system files out of random even without warning you first, which leaves you helpless on your next reboot :s (scary scary)

EDIT: Sorry for reviving a dead post I didn't notice until after I posted.. Oh well, now those who didn't know about this, do.
 

Intel49038

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I work at a computer shop in Michigan and let me tell you, Norton is not the best software to install on your machine, in fact I wouldn't recommend it to my worst enemy. #1 Norton will slow your computer down, no matter if you got the best of the best or a slow computer to begin with, you will loose 75% of the actually speed if you install anything Norton.
#2 I get several machines every day with Norton IS or 360 on them, every machine I scan, has virus's on it and or tons of Mal ware and spyware apps installed.


Eset is by far the best software I've come across. Runs lite, catches virus's and removes them, the smart security suite does the best IMHO at blocking Mal ware,spyware and virus's. Vipre is another great Antivirus suite that is also lite on the resources and catches 99% of all garbage before it can infect your machine.


For the love of Pete, don't ever buy Norton, unless you want to give your money to me to remove the virus's Norton failed to block.