Norman Security Suite PRO 9

Consumers might suffer a slight confusion over the names of Norman Antivirus and Norton Antivirus. They'll have no such problem with the full-scale security suite products from the two companies. Norman Security Suite PRO 9 ($75.95 direct for three licenses) doesn't sound much like Norton Internet Security. It doesn't act much like Norton either; only one of its components is remotely as effective as the corresponding Norton component.

Lengthy, Troubled Installation
Getting this suite installed was quite a chore. A rather lengthy firewall-configuration wizard identified various types of Internet-aware applications, with an option to let the user manually add more. It needed a reboot at the end, another reboot due to a failed update, and a third reboot after the update finished.

That doesn't mean the installation was complete. I had to separately install the internet protection component, the spam filter, and the parental control system. Naturally, this sequence required yet another reboot.

I compared the free space on disk after installation with free space before and determined that the Norman installation occupied 916MB on disk. That's quite a lot. Of recent suites, only PC Tools Internet Security 9.0 ($49.95 direct for three licenses, 3 stars) and Bitdefender Total Security 2012 ($79.95 direct for three licenses, 4 stars) were larger. PC Tools took over 1,000MB and BitDefender nearly 1,200MB. At the other end of the spectrum, Webroot SecureAnywhere Complete ($79.95 direct for three licenses, 4.5 stars) needed less than one megabyte of disk space.

When it came to installing on malware-infested systems, I ran into serious trouble. Malware completely prevented successful installation on two systems, and Norman's tech support representatives couldn't solve the problem at all. In a nearly-unprecedented move, they simply gave up. On several other systems, free space on disk continuously dwindled, so much so that I had to delete non-essential programs in order to complete the scan.

Poor Malware Protection
The suite's protection against viruses and other malware is the same as what's provided by Norman Antivirus 9 ($45.95 direct for three licenses, 2 stars). In fact, the standalone antivirus is almost identical to the suite except that it includes placeholders for suite-only features. I'll summarize my test results here; for full details, read the antivirus review.

Norman clearly didn't detect or remove any malware from the two test systems on which its installation failed. It detected 76 percent of threats and scored 5.2 points for removal. Only three recent products have scored lower. Every rootkit it detected remained actively running after Norman's supposed removal; its score of 2.1 for rootkit removal is the second-lowest among current products. It did manage 9.5 points for scareware removal, but then, 80 percent of current products scored that well or better. For a full explanation of how I derive these scores see How We Test Malware Removal.

Given a chance to install on a clean system, before any malware arrived, Norman did a better job in my malware blocking test. Its detection rate of 91 percent is slightly above average, though its 8.0-point score for malware blocking runs a little below average. It detected all the rootkits samples and scored 8.6 points for rootkit blocking, a much better showing than its dismal 2.1 points for rootkit removal. Norman's 9.8 points for scareware blocking would be more impressive were it not for the fact that almost half the current products scored a perfect 10 in this test. To understand where these numbers come from, please read How We Test Malware Blocking.

I was pleased to find that the suite's added Intrusion Guard component didn't cause trouble when I tried installing twenty PCMag utilities that hook deeply into Windows. However, like the standalone antivirus the suite erroneously identified a DLL belonging to one of the tools as Worm:Delf.CAVJ. I triple-checked the file; it is not infected.

The independent test labs also give Norman relatively low ratings, those that don't simply omit Norman. ICSA Labs certifies it for malware detection and cleaning, but it passed Virus Bulletin's VB100 test only six of the last ten times. And it failed to achieve AV-Test.org's certification in all three tests under Windows 7, Vista, and XP. To learn more about the labs and the way I interpret their results, see How We Interpret Antivirus Lab Tests.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/e4J_1biJX6Y/0,2817,2398347,00.asp

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