Question regarding Norton security

[mana]

Hello Nsanenians, does any one know if the antivirus engine used in norton 2008 is the same as is used in 2009?

[Rock Lee]

The Norton AntiVirus engine is common to the Norton AntiVirus, Norton Internet Security, and Norton 360 products. You can update these products using definitions shown below as supporting Norton AntiVirus.

From what that says I think it may be. I could be & probably am wrong so you should go read this.

[mana]

It seems that the antivirus engine is indeed same for 2008 and 2009 products, which means the virus and spyware detection rates are same. Does it mean that in terms of protection norton 2009 is not superior to 2008, is that right?

[Rock Lee]

I always thought they only changed the year so they could charge more for a "new" program.

But to answer your question, I cant truthfully say yes or no. I've never used (& never intend to)

Norton. From what you said, if they both have the same definitons, I dont know how one

could have an advantage over the other.

[mana]

i ask this because norton 2008 has been kegened but norton 2009 isnt, and i see lots of people on this forum trying to use 2009 with trial resetter. So if 2008 is providing the same security then why bother with 2009. Accepted that 2009 is lighter on system but frankly speaking 2008 isnt bad either.

[Rock Lee]

So basically, you need a fix for 2k9 in order for you to want to use it? (besides a trial resetter)

Like I said before, I have no expirience with Norton of any sort. I think the reason most people

want 2009 is simply because of the year. Just like if you use TuneUp, TU2k9 is a few more

features than 2k8 but its basically the same program.

So if 2008 is providing the same security then why bother with 2009.

If thats how you feel then be my guest & do so. Hopefully I helped you out.

:think:

► Rock Lee

[Toshiro]

2009 was faster than 2008.. (i think..:think: )

It was also taking less resources..

If you intend slowing your pc.. stay with 2008 ;)

[mana]

So basically, you need a fix for 2k9 in order for you to want to use it? (besides a trial resetter)

Like I said before, I have no expirience with Norton of any sort. I think the reason most people

want 2009 is simply because of the year. Just like if you use TuneUp, TU2k9 is a few more

features than 2k8 but its basically the same program.

So if 2008 is providing the same security then why bother with 2009.

If thats how you feel then be my guest & do so. Hopefully I helped you out.

:cheers:

► Rock Lee

Yes you certainly did thnx

[tonyblair]

Here some comments I gathered from CNET Reviews about the two versions of NAV :

Norton AntiVirus 2008

Norton AntiVirus 2008 is roughly six times the size of most competing antivirus applications; doesn't support Firefox; doesn't work with recent Yahoo and AOL IM applications (only old versions); offers fee-based services under the guise of technical support.

Our central problem is that Norton offers some wonderful features, but we have no way of tweaking any of them. Drilling down to the configuration settings we see "Turn on Suspicious Activity Monitoring" or "Turn on Bloodhound heuristics"--but do we really need these features? Symantec provides us with very little additional information (for example, the built-in Help file says only "Turn on Bloodhound heuristics," not what it does), continuing with a practice adopted long ago by Symantec of making decisions for the user rather than presenting the user with options. Then there's my favorite "Turn on Advanced Mode" under the Suspicious Activity Monitor--it's not on by default, so should we turn it on? (Apparently the only difference between regular and Advance Mode is that the Suspicious Activity Monitor will log it in regular and alert you in Advanced mode). Again, you have to accept that Norton has your best interests in mind.

Symantec limits (if not removes) a user's ability to customize and tweak individual settings throughout Norton AntiVirus 2008; for example, there's no quick way to set Norton to only scan new or recently modified files.

Also new is Browser Defender. Like SONAR, a behavior-monitoring and blocking feature acquired last year from a company called Whole Security, Browser Defender, formerly known as Canary, is a proactive heuristic layer that specifically identifies signatures of known Internet Explorer browser vulnerabilities and will block any Symantec-known exploits. The idea behind Browser Defender is that vulnerable browsers are the first point of entry for many Web threats known as "drive by" downloads, and that IE has a number of outstanding public vulnerabilities. Problem is that Browser Defender doesn't work for other browsers. Firefox users are still out in the cold, despite occupying up to 20 percent of the browser market. In our informal tests, using only Internet Explorer, one porn site in particular we use for testing was flagged by other browser defenders as containing several iframe referrers, but Norton did not so much as peep about the Web Attacker content on that site. 

Symantec's support options include an automatic diagnostic tool for the program. It's worth noting that one of the comments it made is: "Your computer runs slowly after installing Norton AntiVirus 2008," which leads us to believe that many people experience this condition.

Norton AntiVirus 2009

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 : it is faster and considerably lighter than last year's version. 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.

Gone is the awful LiveUpdate component of past Norton products. With 2009 products, Symantec is providing antimalware definition signatures every few minutes or so. On the interface, you'll see a notice indicating how many minutes since the last update. We didn't see definitions older than four minutes in our testing.