60% off Norton Antivirus/Internet Security

ChiefGrasscutter

Now let me see....
NIS for 3 computers for 1 year at £21...or so this thread tells me.

So that is £21/365 or £0.06 per day- which is 6p, per day per subscription
and if you have three computers protected then that is £0.06/3 which by my reckoning is 2p per day per computer.

......and this is a "waste of money"?

bbfc

ChiefGrasscutter wrote: »

Now let me see....
NIS for 3 computers for 1 year at £21...or so this thread tells me.

So that is £21/365 or £0.06 per day- which is 6p, per day per subscription
and if you have three computers protected then that is £0.06/3 which by my reckoning is 2p per day per computer.

......and this is a "waste of money"?

For £14 until Symantec's 30% off promotion finishes (which I think is today!). So thats even cheaper per day.

Once the 30% promotion ends, if you use the promo code to buy the Upgrade version instead, which is priced at £39.99 for 3 PCs, you'll get it for £16. Cheaper than Amazon.

bbfc

pitkin2020 wrote: »

Each to their own but avast is one of the better free ones so I have no need to waste money on NIS.

http://chart.av-comparatives.org/chart2.php

I've used many free AV suites on my Mac, including Sophos and Avast! but I prefer Norton. Plus i only buy it when I can get a really good discount. I wouldn't pay £40 for it.

pitkin2020

ChiefGrasscutter wrote: »

Now let me see....
NIS for 3 computers for 1 year at £21...or so this thread tells me.

So that is £21/365 or £0.06 per day- which is 6p, per day per subscription
and if you have three computers protected then that is £0.06/3 which by my reckoning is 2p per day per computer.

......and this is a "waste of money"?

well if I break the interest down on my credit card to per day clearly its not a waste of money either then or break down my mobile phone contract per day its money saving then.

The point was your 2p a day protection is equivalent to my free protection and over a longer period than just a single day I will have saved.

As I already said each to their own, if you do a google you will find a couple of sites that will let you basically attack your own pc (safely) to see how good your protection is and for me avast has always been comparable with NIS but has actually less impact on my pcs without all the rubbish it installs, fair enough NIS is getting lighter.

pitkin2020

bbfc wrote: »

I've used many free AV suites on my Mac, including Sophos and Avast! but I prefer Norton. Plus i only buy it when I can get a really good discount. I wouldn't pay £40 for it.

Agreed, I always used to buy Norton when it was discounted but got fed up with the system hungry software (albeit it has improved a lot) for a mediocre level of protection so see no need to buy it anymore.

robmar0se

Which AV to use is a personal thing, as there is no definitive answer. Criteria to assess include, footprint (resource used to boot and run), how quick to identify new malware and update, possibly the level of false positives, and cost. The most important of these is the identification of malware.

Recently I was suspicious of a file that was not identified as malware by the AV, so sent it to Virus Total; only 26 of 45 identified the file as malware. To be fair Norton, Avast, and AVG picked it up, but not Avira nor Trend.

Clearly one example does prove that any one is better. To assess really one needs to measure over a number of incidents how quickly the AVs pick up new malware. Great in theory, but difficult to do in practice. Comparative reviews also fail in this regard, as they don’t measure over a period of time.

Hence we are left with choices based on cost and/or footprint – often said “pays yr money, takes yr chance”. Pay £14 or whatever, or £0 – the decision will largely be subjective as which is best.

m5rcc

Norton should pay people to use it: better AVs out there, usually for free.

ChiefGrasscutter

Another issue is what you use your computer for.
If its just for social/domsestic/personal use then free is probably the way to go.

But once the computer starts to be used for any form of business with stuff being emailed out/in then everything changes and some form of paid for constantly updating anti-virus suite is probably a requirement for all sorts of reasons.

Gillor

m5rcc wrote: »

Norton should pay people to use it: better AVs out there, usually for free.

Yes there are.....but not for free according to the January/February test results published by Av-test.org.

But in many ways it doesn't matter which one you choose because if you rely solely on any signature-based a/v you are going to get caught out at some stage.

So use whichever one you feel comfortable with but then you'll need to add extra layers of security if you want comprehensive protection.

bbfc

pitkin2020 wrote: »

Agreed, I always used to buy Norton when it was discounted but got fed up with the system hungry software (albeit it has improved a lot) for a mediocre level of protection so see no need to buy it anymore.

Since their 2009/2010 release its been vastly improved. It's the lightest AV suite (as ranked on many tech sites) and has one of the best detection rates.