Thanks for the reply.

Hey Colin,

I think one of the reasons Norton and McAfee can claim so much market share is because they come preinstalled in a “trial” on most new machines. Consequently, most noobs know nothing else. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is King.

Many users do insist that McAfee, Norton and AVG are quite simply the very best, but as long as it works for them then that’s fine as each PC is configured differently.

Many use AVG because of its popularity, but whatever AV they use it must be complemented by good antimalware and safe surfing methods.

I run 3 different machines with different AV’s for different purposes but it also allows me to see how they interact with other security applications.

thanks for the explanation, puts the article in a different perpective. Again some good points you made. A home user should indeed be carefull when testing AV programs, 2 (or even more) at the same time is bound to give problems.

And yeah, Norton has a yearlong reputation of being a resource hog (and they deserved that reputation). I hope they finally have seen the light and continue on the path taken.

For the free AV’s out there, avast is one of the better ones, so Marie, don’t worry
I always say it’s better to have at least some protection than none whatsoever.

Or you could just run linux and not worry to much aboutu silly things like viruses.

Brad

I use Avast as well, and really like it and not only because it’s free. It really has protected my computers 24×7.

I agree with you . . . the latest iteration of Norton seems to be less resource intensive than ALL the last, and Panda perhaps vice-versa.

But the article is intended to be “timeless”, and here’s why:

For years, Norton established a reputation of being a resource hog. Consequently, it’s going to take Norton more than a year to divorce themselves from that reputation. This truism may work in Panda’s favor though. Unfair perhaps, but that’s the reality.

Now your caution to test every year is well put, but I don’t think most noobs do that. And a caution I’d have for noobs on that is that testing doesn’t imply you have more than one at a time on your machine . . . you know how cranky these programs get if they detect a competitor running on a machine. Someone experienced like yourself would know that, but a noob might be likely to try several at once.

And the testing a noob might do might only be directed to on-demand detection rates, and not on-access or heuristic detection rates, thus their testing as such may not correspond to their use habits.

I tried to make my article “timeless” and focused on a noob audience. Very difficult, if not impossible, to straddle both noobs and experienced users. If you write to an experienced audience, much of what you say will go over the heads of noobs. If you write to a noob audience, much of what you say will be too simplistic for experienced users.

OT here, but I think unfortunately the Windows OS is becoming more focused on noobs . . . though that is the biggest market, so I guess this makes some marketing sense.

Thanks for the comment and as we stated, it’s about taste, and systems that allow us to choose what we think is best for our fit.