Norman Antivirus & Antispyware is a decent antivirus software, but just doesn’t stack up to the heavy-hitters. The software has an ok lineup of features and pretty good detection, but fails in execution. The interface has certainly been improved, but still isn’t great.
Scope of Protection:
Norman Antivirus & Antispyware covers the basics (viruses and spyware, obviously) like protection from keyloggers, rootkits, Trojans and worms. The software also has comprehensive email protection, scanning emails coming into your inbox, as well as messages you send. For more protection from Norman, you can look into the Norman Security Suite, which incorporates a personal firewall and parental controls.
Effectiveness:
Norman’s antivirus software left us a bit disappointed with its comparatively low security. The software passed the most recent Virus Bulletin 100% test (for Vista), but failed on the XP test. Furthermore, the test found Norman on the low end of the competition, achieving a cumulative proactive/reactive score of only 48%.
Norman Antivirus & Antispyware also struggled on the AV Comparatives test, which they also didn’t pass. In the test, Norman had an overall detection rate of 84.8%, but “overprotected” by mistaking over 40 false positives.
Ease of Installation:
Norman’s antivirus software is pretty straightforward to install (only took us 5 minutes), and doesn’t require restarting a restart. After installation is complete, Norman sets out immediately to update itself. And while the software is setup to run completely in the background, setting up specific scheduled scans or performing a manual scan isn’t too difficult.
Ease of Use:
Norman’s interface is fairly straightforward and easy to use (and significantly better than the previous versions basic setup). The main categories of the software are setup as tabs on the left side of the dashboard, and accommodate fairly simple navigation within the software.
Features:
Norman features a antivirus screensaver. This allows the software to recognize that the system is idle, and run the antivirus scan while the system resources are free.
The antivirus software also includes advanced heuristic detection. With the Norman SandBox technology, the software can proactively look at files in a safe area (without the possibility of infecting your computer) to see how the file behaves. This feature is combined with DNA matching, which lets Norman effectively find malware that is so new it’s not on signature databases yet, but still exhibits malicious code, and is part of the virus ‘family’.
Updates:
Regular updates are essential for up-to-date security, so Norman delivers them automatically. The automatic updates are performed daily, though you can also set it up to run every 12 or 6 hours. Of course you can always manually update with the click of a button. Users also have the option to configure updates to work if they’re using a proxy server.
Help & Support:
The support for Norman Antivirus & Antispyware was fine, but nothing great. Online help resources include an archive of previously addressed help issues, and a user manual. Email support is available, but phone support costs $20 per incident.
Summary:
All-in-all, Norman Antivirus & Antispyware is a fairly lackluster program. As other security software manufacturers have made large strides to improve their usability, performance and protection, Norman has fallen a bit behind.
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