Antivirus software is the new protection racket

[Ian Kenefick]

Correction;

Installing Norton will not slow down a properly configured maintained
computer.

Re-correction,

It will. This applies to all resident AV. They differ by the degree by
which they slow them down though.

( I have a network of over 200 computers of various makes, models and
vintage. Norton is on all of them. None of them are slowed down by
Norton...but then again I know how to maintain a healthy system).

Are you saying if you benchmarked a PC with against one without
antivirus that there would be 'NO' difference in the performance? It
would appear so.

Regards,
Ian Kenefick
http://antivirus.ik-cs.com
http://www.ik-cs.com

 

[Sammy]

Sammy, Sammy, Sammy.
Have you ever noticed a slowdown in any Windows system that had a cpu speed of
over 1.5GHz while using only Norton's Antivirus and not any other part of
Norton?
C'mon.

Yes. Using Norton 2004 and 2005; With 2005 slowing down more so then
2004; Where as 2004 seems to be slower then 2003 was.

You must be the only person I can think of who doesn't notice it.

 

[pcbutts1]

Yes. Using Norton 2004 and 2005; With 2005 slowing down more so then
2004; Where as 2004 seems to be slower then 2003 was.

You must be the only person I can think of who doesn't notice it.

Let's face it. One of you is lying... or just plain stupid.

Read my paper on it.

 

[Sammy]

Let's face it. One of you is lying... or just plain stupid.

Fair Enough. Do a bit of googling for yourself. You too will see, many
many! people have noticed this issue with Norton being slow. And were
just talking about Antivirus, not the entire slow!!! security suite
offering.

 

[pcbutts1]

Fair Enough. Do a bit of googling for yourself. You too will see, many
many! people have noticed this issue with Norton being slow. And were
just talking about Antivirus, not the entire slow!!! security suite
offering.

I would never use it, but I usually recommend it to others. You see, I have
complete disdain for most of them; they're beneath me.

 

[Guest]

Yes. Using Norton 2004 and 2005; With 2005 slowing down more so then
2004; Where as 2004 seems to be slower then 2003 was.

You must be the only person I can think of who doesn't notice it.

Does the Parental Control feature still exist in version 2004 and 2005
(of Norton Internet Security)? If so, did you include it in the
install? Why? If you included it, you could try disabling it to see
what happens with performance. (Repeat the same question regarding
Norton AntiSpam included in NIS.)

When you say just "Norton", you don't narrow it down much. WHICH
Norton? Just Norton AntiVirus? Or Norton Internet Security (which also
includes Norton AntiVirus)?

I've seen plenty of whiners wailing about Norton's slowdown when in fact
they aren't talking about Norton AntiVirus compared against some other
anti-virus only product but are comparing Norton Internet Security with
*everything* of it installed and/or enabled and thinking that is a fair
comparison of just its anti-virus component. If you are talking about
NIS disable its firewall (you cannot choose not to install it), don't
install the Parental Control feature (if it is still available), don't
install Norton AntiSpam bundled in the suite, and then compare
performance loss. Even a Ford Mustang will beat out a Porsche if the
Porsche is towing a boat.

For Norton Anti-Virus *ONLY*, I haven't seen much a performance
difference between it and other anti-virus products (that also achieve
better than 95% coverage as tested and shown at
http://www.av-comparatives.org/ (but I have seen some difference in CPU
usage). High CPU usage doesn't NOT necessarily dictate loss of
performance. Even if a process runs at Normal priority, it can
relinquish its process when another wants equal or higher priority
execution. Even zombies know that trick: run heavily when idle but
throttle back when inuse.

Were you comparing ONLY Norton AntiVirus against the other AV products
regarding performance, or were you comparing the full suite of Norton
Internet Security against just an AV-only product? It's been awhile
since I've seen someone purchase *just* Norton AntiVirus when it
represents 75% of the cost of the suite (i.e., for a few bucks more, you
get the suite instead of just one component of it).

Some measurements (not from independent labs, however) show that Norton
AntiVirus will slow a system by 4% while McAfee VirusScan doesn't slow
it at all (real hard to believe), but other AV products also slow down
performance.

http://reviews.cnet.com/ZoneAlarm_with_Antivirus/4505-3667_7-30898743-5.html?tag=top
4% drag with NAV compared to system not running any AV program

http://reviews.cnet.com/Norton_AntiVirus_2005/4505-3681_7-30998882-5.html
"running Norton AntiVirus 2005 results in the same amount of drag on
system performance as running McAfee and Trend Micro PC-cillin"

Too often users claim there is a performance drag but neglect the fact
that they are running a dirty system. It has been polluted over a long
time with software installs, often from unknown or untrusted sources,
been repaired several times or crapware eradicated, and they think that
a polluted and mended system should perform flawlessly. If you want to
perform a true test of performance loss, do a fresh install of Windows,
apply all updates, install the product to be tested, update it, and then
benchmark it so it isn't hindered by all the other software you run, a
polluted registry, fragmentation, and other problems that are not the
fault of the product under test. The running with an 80-pound backpack
will fare better than his buddy that has a cold, bandages wrapping his
knees, and given a map written and updated by dozens other users of that
map.

I think users forget that Symantec is a software *publisher*. All of
their products were bought from someone else. They only perform
development thereafter to maintain a marketing edge for their product,
even if that edge is nebulous. Symantec is not a software developer.
That means their goals for their products are different. I've seen the
same happen with other software publishers. Figure in about 3 years to
start looking for alternatives, and in 5 years you really need an
alternative. Norton AntiVirus (and their firewall, too) are outside the
3-year window, and even outside the 5-year window. So I don't doubt
there is some degradation with the latest versions of NAV as it is
getting long in the tooth. Just be sure you are comparing apples to
apples and not apples to a truckload of apples.

When I switched from Norton AntiVirus to CA EzAntiVirus, I noticed a
just perceptible performance increase. However, I have yet to see
AV-Comparatives (or anyone else providing as comprehensive a test) show
the coverage for EzAntivirus so I'm in the dark as to it coverage. I
see lots of users saying to use AVG or Avast simply because they have
free versions, but their coverage sucks - but then I really don't know
how good is the coverage by EzAntiVirus.

 

[Sammy]

Using a completely clean fresh OEM installation of Windows XP
Professional Sp2; then loading Norton Antivirus 2005 does show a
significant performance hit. This test was done using a p4 3.2
(northwood chip; not prescott) on an Intel 865GBF mainboard with
1gigabyte of dual channel DDR kingston valueram. Sitting on a 160gig
Western Digital SATA hard drive; 8megs cache, yadda yadda.

The time it takes to open the norton control interface from double
clicking its icon beside the clock is noticable. Other applications do
not appear to take nearly as long to bring up their GUI. The computer
startup time used to be roughly 25 seconds until I could login, since
installing Norton Antivirus 2005; That's almost 40 seconds now. (Norton
takes awhile to finish loading it's drivers apparently)

I don't run a dirty system, this was a clean load 2 days ago.

 

[Sammy]

http://www.av-comparatives.org/ (but I have seen some difference in CPU
usage). High CPU usage doesn't NOT necessarily dictate loss of
performance. Even if a process runs at Normal priority, it can
relinquish its process when another wants equal or higher priority
execution. Even zombies know that trick: run heavily when idle but
throttle back when inuse.

While I'm not an expert in this field, as I've admitted before. I do
have some associates who are. I am thus, aware of this. However, as I
said before; Norton is showing a noticable effect on the system speed.

Were you comparing ONLY Norton AntiVirus against the other AV products
regarding performance, or were you comparing the full suite of Norton

Internet Security against just an AV-only product? It's been awhile
since I've seen someone purchase *just* Norton AntiVirus when it
represents 75% of the cost of the suite (i.e., for a few bucks more, you
get the suite instead of just one component of it).

I have been advised against purchasing and/or installing the entire
package. I was told not to buy the antivirus either, but as you can
see; I didn't listen.

Too often users claim there is a performance drag but neglect the fact
that they are running a dirty system. It has been polluted over a long
time with software installs, often from unknown or untrusted sources,

been repaired several times or crapware eradicated, and they think that
a polluted and mended system should perform flawlessly. If you want

to

While I can accept the fact many assume everyone is an idiot here, I
sir am not. While I do not have expert knowledge of computers, I do
have associates whom I trust that do. I have already been educated as
it were regarding all of this. I personally would use the term
lectured, but to each his own.

When I switched from Norton AntiVirus to CA EzAntiVirus, I noticed a
just perceptible performance increase. However, I have yet to see
AV-Comparatives (or anyone else providing as comprehensive a test) show
the coverage for EzAntivirus so I'm in the dark as to it coverage. I

see lots of users saying to use AVG or Avast simply because they have

free versions, but their coverage sucks - but then I really don't know
how good is the coverage by EzAntiVirus.

What exactly do you mean by the coverage issue? And do you have
references I could read regarding it?

 

[Guest]

Using a completely clean fresh OEM installation of Windows XP
Professional Sp2; then loading Norton Antivirus 2005 does show a
significant performance hit. This test was done using a p4 3.2
(northwood chip; not prescott) on an Intel 865GBF mainboard with
1gigabyte of dual channel DDR kingston valueram. Sitting on a 160gig
Western Digital SATA hard drive; 8megs cache, yadda yadda.

The time it takes to open the norton control interface from double
clicking its icon beside the clock is noticable. Other applications do
not appear to take nearly as long to bring up their GUI. The computer
startup time used to be roughly 25 seconds until I could login, since
installing Norton Antivirus 2005; That's almost 40 seconds now.
(Norton
takes awhile to finish loading it's drivers apparently)

I don't run a dirty system, this was a clean load 2 days ago.

That does sound disappointing. Maybe it is performing some scanning on
startup. The last version that I used was NAV 2003 (as part of NIS
2003) and it compared equally with other AV software. I have heard that
each subsequent version thereafter got successively slower (i.e.,
impacted the responsiveness of the computer). Since NAV and NIS are
getting pretty old when you consider Symantec is a software publisher
and not a developer, it could be Symantec is just bandaging the product
at this point. What happens if you use their old cop-out method of
disabling the option to load on startup and instead put a shortcut to it
in the Startup group? That would probably shorten the boot time but
then you have to wait until the system settles after login for it to
load (but maybe it loads faster that way so there is less overall
impact).

 

[Guest]

While I'm not an expert in this field, as I've admitted before. I do
have some associates who are. I am thus, aware of this. However, as I
said before; Norton is showing a noticable effect on the system speed.



I have been advised against purchasing and/or installing the entire
package. I was told not to buy the antivirus either, but as you can
see; I didn't listen.

The last version (of NIS that includes NAV) was 2003. It seemed a
decent product back at that version and I have also had coworkers that
have noticed a "significant" performance impact with 2004 and 2005
(although 2004 seemed worse than 2005). I work in the software QA group
at a software development company so we're no dummies here (in fact, if
we call the helpdesk, they just immediately dole out a pre-purchased
problem ticket number for Microsoft because they already know they can't
answer our questions). When my NIS 2003 subscription ran out (although
I know of ways to get around it), I decided not to continue with Norton
anymore for firewall and anti-virus solutions. I'm not as vehemently
against Norton as some others and their corporate anti-virus (SAV) still
works well (and better than their consumer NAV product).

While I can accept the fact many assume everyone is an idiot here, I
sir am not. While I do not have expert knowledge of computers, I do
have associates whom I trust that do. I have already been educated as
it were regarding all of this. I personally would use the term
lectured, but to each his own.

Often a respondent doesn't know everything the user did or know their
expertise level and, frankly, it is often a waste of time to get all
that info. There are posts that are so terse as to encompass any
possible answer and those that are just a bit shorter than War and
Peace. Typically you have to start with low expectations and minimum
common denominators in assuming what the user did and what they
understand and build up from there. If you start at too high a level,
whoosh, it goes right over their head.

What exactly do you mean by the coverage issue? And do you have
references I could read regarding it?

AV-Comparatives (http://www.av-comparatives.org/). Unfortunately they
only show coverage for about a dozen products. Too many so-called
reviews are just an end-user overview and are worthless for knowing how
well the product actually fares against all viruses.

 

[Buffalo]

Using a completely clean fresh OEM installation of Windows XP
Professional Sp2; then loading Norton Antivirus 2005 does show a
significant performance hit. This test was done using a p4 3.2
(northwood chip; not prescott) on an Intel 865GBF mainboard with
1gigabyte of dual channel DDR kingston valueram. Sitting on a 160gig
Western Digital SATA hard drive; 8megs cache, yadda yadda.

The time it takes to open the norton control interface from double
clicking its icon beside the clock is noticable. Other applications do
not appear to take nearly as long to bring up their GUI. The computer
startup time used to be roughly 25 seconds until I could login, since
installing Norton Antivirus 2005; That's almost 40 seconds now. (Norton
takes awhile to finish loading it's drivers apparently)

I don't run a dirty system, this was a clean load 2 days ago.

Sammy,
Taking longer to boot up and longer to open the Norton interface (usually only
the first time) in no way indicates a general system slowdown.
C'mon now.
ie: does it noticeabley slow down your other programs and games?
If so, you sure failed to note it.
If the test you did only includes the above, it is invalid.

 

[Phil Weldon]

Well, what you report seems to have little to do with system performance.
So the time to open the 'norton control interface' is 'noticable'. So what
that means is exactly - the time to open the 'norton control interface is
'noticable' NOT that it shows an effect on system performance. So the
system start-up time is 40 seconds rather than 25 seconds. Again, that is
has exactly nothing to do with system performance. And, you post, '(Norton
takes awhile to finish loading it's (sic) drivers apparently). Maybe, maybe
not... perhaps, perhaps... again nothing to do with system performance. If
you DO have information that reflects changes in system performance, by all
means post it.

 

[PCDaddy]

"Buffalo" wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> "NEWS" wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>> As> My internet pc config
>> DELL GX1
>> windows 2000
>> p2 350
>> 256 mb memory
>> 2 x 20gb hard drives
>> No antivirus software
>> No spyware
>> No problems
>> Been up and running on the same setup for 2 years and never had a
>> problem.
>> Still runs as fast as when I installed win 2000
>>
>> Runs faster than my P4 3000 WITH NORTON AND XP.
>>
>> Steve
>
> Well, if your P2-350 runs faster than your P4-3000, then if you apply your
> 'secrets' to your P4, it should just about be the fastest PC in the
> whole,wide
> world.

Installing Norton is one way to make a P4 run like a P2.

I like that,lolll installing norton! Sad but true.

 

[PCDaddy]

First of all, I really have to say, the thread starter is a complete moron. Not that i had to say that. He must have seen the MVP by some names and though "most vulnerable person". idiot. I truly don't care for Norton at all. Nor Avast. I say this and most responses are, they have anti-virus?? Fix it utilities by vcom has what i deem the best anti-virus software. It doesn't slow the system down at all and does a full scan in, depending on hd, files etc..., 10 min on my 80 gig hd. I have had many friends and relatives use it and they love it. Plus it has all the utilities with it. No i'm not a sales man. When i took norton off their pcs , same response, wow does my pc boot fast now, and runs faster too. Norton integrates into the system too much for my taste. That's just my opinion (no offense to Norton users).