Well, I'm still "not comfortable" with Symantec AV 11.0 either. I liked the simplicity of the older coorporate versions.

Not just based on this comparison, but most other comparisons given in here so far do point to this being a "pot-kettle" story.

Vista is the best and most secure operating system out there. Oh yeah, you will need a powerful machine to handle Vista (like Core 2 duo or Quad core) but it will slow down older machines. I have Vista Home premium installed on one of my old p4 1.8 Ghz and it does slow it down but on my Core 2 duo and Quad core with Vista ultimate installed, there's no slow down even when doing multitasking. But that's not Microsoft's problem, they are just keeping up the pace with technology. If you got an older machine then stick with XP. Way to go...Vista is the best and Windows 7 will be the best! best! :)

Mmmm... what flavor Kool-Aid are you drinking today?

To argue that an OS sees improved performance with faster, more powerful hardware is a truism. So, to claim that Vista is a great OS IF run on high-end hardware is really not saying much at all, now is it?

And THAT says an awful lot about Vista...

Products from Symantec are more slow and bloated than Vista itself. Norton products ran me off five years ago and as far as I'm concerned, its up to them to do something special in order for me to give their products a second look.

As for Vista, while I'll keep my desktop PC running XP around for a while, I am considering upgrading my 1 year old notebook with vista to a MAC notebook and duel boot XP.

I'm sure Microsoft will keep the lead in corporate market for several more years but unless they change their position that all of their customers are pirates stealing their software until they prove otherwise via activation and validation every other day, Apple will continue to take away Microsoft's customers.

Vista users should be happy, now they can have a bit less bloat on their already bloated system.

While agree that this smacks of pot vs. kettle, has any of the Norton haters actually tried it? This year that is.

I have. Its fast. Its not fat. It doesn't slow me down. I benchmarked it. Have you?

Caveat - I got it for free via a license from Symantic. Still I have tried 6 different internet security programs lately. Only one was unusable and one too annoying.

Kaspersky - Worked well but it costs more than anything else. Why so expensive considering the cost of Russian labor?

Zone Alarm - uses Kasperky's AV and I really like its firewall. However it doesn't seem fully ready for Vista based on what I have heard.

AVG Internet Security - pretty good but it did let an ActiveX trojan through when I intentionaly clicked on it. Since I haven't exposed any of the others to this high a level of difficulty I can't hold it against it.

Trend Micro - Looks nice but it annoyed me by whining about greyware. It even complained about an EMPTY folder with a name it didn't like. Its rather bloated at the moment as well but it didn't slow me down.

Iolo System Mechanic - Its had pretty good reviews but for me it was a mess. The firewall couldn't deal with bit torrent clients without pegging the CPU meter. Plus the BSOD's were not exactly acceptable. Specifically they were page fault errors which are mostly from memory, other core hardware, or sometimes anti-virus software. Uninstalling it ended the problem. Disabling it didn't.

So far Norton is behaving itself. However I still recommend Kaspersky much of the time. Its consistently number one on response time.

Anyone here tried Bit-Defender. They scored rather well on the PC World review but I can't trust that rag. They made Norton a best buy when it was the second slowest in their benchmark test in 2006.

Bit-defender has some very well known retired 'Reverse engineers' working with them.
If i had a company, they would be the only one I'd trust.

On the norton side of thing, wasnt it only the corp version that ran really well? Or have they finally got their act into gear and put some of that decent performance into all their products. The version that came with Toshiba Laptops last year was just shocking.

On Norton/Symantec:
I hated the consumer version, but liked the corp version (been using it at work since v6). As they've added to the corp version to make it more complete (AV, firewall, antispyware, ad blocking, personal info protection, defensive capabilities for malware that attacks it and more heuristics to deal with zero-day) it has gotten slower. To get rid of some of the unneeded (IMHO) stuff, I disable ad blocking and the personal info protection. On a newer machine it runs fine (like Vista does), but when I have users with older machines and they ask "why doesn't it run as fast as when I got it?" I have to say Symantec and probably the 3 billion security patches since XP was first released. It has even more detailed settings hidden in the config that aren't enabled by default that would just be too much for most companies to handle unless they had VERY simple environment or a dedicated config/testing staff. But that's the way it is with any product that goes into a lot of depth with application monitoring firewalls (i.e. What dlls with what checksums can Word load? Rather than just letting Word run.)

They just released Endpoint protection which is supposedly a whole new product using technology from all the acquisitions they've made in the past several years. I'm just about to start testing it, but it's supposed to be a big speed improvement.

Of of the companies to diss Vista, I find it funny that Symantec steps up to the mark.

I know there are Vistaphiles that love their OS. So be it I'm glad for them that they have had the money to get all new equipment to make Vista work for them in a way they are happy with... I gave it a try for another month with SP1 recently... and after time and time again going into my XP Virtual drive to get things to work, because I can STILL not get some of my equipment to work on Vista no matter what drivers I use. And worse much NON-MS based software related to businesses just is not working on it. Things that are critical to Business, like Accounting programs, and human resource systems... And worse some ticket tracking software...

So again I returned to XP MCE with SP3 now. Which seems to work just dandy with everything across the board. Vista SP1 has once more been delegated to a virtual image so I can pop into it for reference when a client calls me for something on it.

And IDK why but the Vista Media Center is just does not seem as versatile as the XP MCE. I mean most of my custom apps that I like in the XP MCE that I have installed; (IE not from MS) just will not work in the Vista version. IDK if its a DRM thing, or just that MS is not allowing custom programing for it. IDK. It was just easier to go back to what worked for me in the end for my stuff, Plus XP MCE allows for unrestrictive HD playback in comparison, I suppose thats an oversite on MS part. I think thats what most people are saying that play this game with MS anymore... instead of going out and buying all new stuff just to get an OS to work as it should. they just go back to what DID work and be done with it until MS gets its act together with their Vendors, and remember that the Customer is important too , not just the big business bullies trying to tell end users what they can and can not do with their own equipment.

In My Opinion Vista is another Windows ME fiasco. They didn't do what they needed to long before hand to ensure that all the peripheral vendors got published and certified drivers for all the existing equipment out there. Indeed I would have had MORE respect for MS IF they would have followed their original agenda and flat out told all their customers that Vista will NOT work on anything but the latest equipment in existence. Possibly even making it 64bit only. Which is absolutely the best platform for Vista IMO. 32bit with less then 4gb ram... stay with XP MCE SP3 for your needs.

BTW... "pack-vista-inspirat-2-1.0.exe" Its a nice little emulation tool that makes your XP MCE SP3 look ALMOST indistinguishable from a Vista installation. There may be a updated version now, but I must say I love being able to have the general look of it, and still have all my XP compatibility.

Anyways. I like what I got now, and If some of you guys like what you got, and are happy with it... Great stay with it. If not, well its time to look at your options... Either get new and get Vista, Or stay with what you have and go back to XP and be happy about it. MS still counts a downgraded system as a Vista sale anyways. So it ultimately doesn't matter. lol

PS: lol Symantec reminds me of Star trek in so many ways... remember the old adage that every odd numbers trek film sucks? well, that's almost synonymous with Norton. Every other year it seems like they make a product that just sucks the resources out of your machine, and then the next year they make a good version again. IDK what thats all about. But I tend to stay with the good one for a min of 2 years. before even looking at the next one. lol

"...to get all new equipment to make Vista work for them in a way they are happy with..."

Yes, and you also realize the Vista OS has been developed for the future and not the past, right?

@ShahinD First of all I know all to well how to use Vista and I can tell you for fact that vista is nothing but bloatware that uses way too many resources than it should. Also if you were a gamer you would know that Vista reduces gaming performance. Also Vista cripples most AMD computers with their new SP1 with a BSOD.

Then on top of losing gaming performance with Vista you want to add Symantec software that is also bloatware and also slows any computer badly. Symantecs software is rubbish and is overpriced. Also Symantec is known to write their own Viruses to make you think that you need their AV which is bull.

Back to this topic about Vista. Vista is not as good as M$ was boasting about. Yes its got DX10 for gamers but theres people out there thats slowly getting DX10 working on XP. Also Vista was meant to have a new file system that got rid of fragmentation and also speedup file access but M$ left it out because M$ wanted to get even more rich by rushing out a badly bugged OS thats bloated with software that 90% of the population will never use.

Lets hope the next Iteration of windows will make an improvement on XP with their promised filesystem and faster gaming experience. Forget about another DirectX and concentrate on an better OS for gods sake M$. Also forget about adding crapware that we dont need and just work on the Kernel of the OS to make it a smoother , faster experience. Give us the bare minum for a lower price and then sell us th bloatware that you feel neccesary to add to the OS. Lower price means less piracy of the OS too M$. The prices for Vista is plain stupid IMO.

Some of your "facts" definitely have some comedic value. Other parts of your post I tend to agree with.

Quite the roller coaster ride you threw out there...

I got DX10 dlls working in XP now too. Its not official, but there are ways to do it that work so you can play the Vista only games in XP with satisfaction. .. Either way, Eventually MS will release an official DX10 update across the board. Either that or Software vendors will just not code for it as much and stick to what has the most saturation of the target audience. Which atm is still DirectX 9.0c. Indeed most titles released today are hybrids of both, because they know that to get the most out of DX10 only the top line machines can do it, and that's not their target audience, and those people generally are not going to be able to afford that... The Alky Project is becoming a standard very quickly for Gaming XP users... if the vendors start taking that into account and code their projects that use DX10 so they will work with that. they almost guarantee themselves more sales instantly, just because MORE people will be compatible with it.

There will never be a DirectX 10 update for Windows XP. DirectX 10 is not 100% compatible with Windows XP. DirectX 10 games run on Windows XP about as well as DirectX 8 games run on the free official version of Wine under Linux.

"Also Symantec is known to write their own Viruses to make you think that you need their AV which is bull."

Symantec has never resorted to such measures. I'd love to see you point out an example.

As for Vista's gaming performance, these issues were not Microsoft's fault. They were because Nvidia and ATI/AMD got lazy and took too long to create high quality drivers. The WDDM graphics architecture was the best thing to ever happen to Windows when it comes to gaming. You can't expect that old computer with a single core CPU and 512MB of memory to last forever.

@ShahinD

See that nifty "reply to post" button?

Learn it, live it, love it.

Good luck to you with that :)

I gave up long ago..

What resources SHOULD vista use and who made you the king of how things should be?

"Symantec has never resorted to such measures. I'd love to see you point out an example."

It was a common belief held by many during the 90s about many anti-virus vendors but never really proven.
Someone writes a virus and mysteriously was traced back to a certain company. The real question was did the user write a virus then get snatched up by the anti-virus company or was he there from the start :)

Vista is much more better than XP and earlier OS versions.
improve your skill who thinks Vista is not good enough
it's your own problem not vista Problem

it's the same for who has problem with symantec's products.symantec's products are great.

Fe Fi Fo Fum I smell a troll.

I always get a kick from users, I've been using such and such OS and have had no problems. Well then you are not doing much with your computer. Now put that computer under a large constant load for a few days/weeks and lets see what happens. That's when you find out how good your OS and hardware really are. And that's why a lot of business' and power users don't jump everytime there's a new OS/Update, with a few exceptions of course.

And I think it's ironic that Symantec is dissing someone else for bad code lol Does your computer run fast, is it running stable no problems install Symantec products and those problems will be fixed lol
First thing when you buy a new HP uninstall anything from Symantec and you will notice a dramatic performance increase.

Just my 2 cents plus taxes yikes

Sorry, but I find the ones who tend to have the least amount of problems with "such and such OS" are the ones who actually know what the hell they're doing.

No matter how much knowledge you have you still can't control bugs, errors and so forth put on OS under a load for a long enough period of time and those bugs etc. will appear.
There is no such thing as a bug/error free OS.

This is like a leach telling its host that it sucks...

Its like every company out there wants MS to make an OS on their terms, when it would probably turn out better if they just left them alone. Then again.... "One Care" is a joke of an anti virus type software. So maybe MS should learn from their mistake.

But I'm afraid that I can't agree with the mass, I haven't had any major problems with the OS as a whole. Any problem I've encountered so far has been created by me and a simple restore fixed it. As far as corporations go... well thats another story...

Vista seems to work better on new machines, obviously, but not supporting the same hardware as XP is just gonna slay the upgraders.

I have Vista - came with my Gateway - but I put XP on instead. It just works better.

I have a hard time understanding why Vista defenders refuse to even acknowledge that the product is indeed flawed.

Vista is flawed but so is eXPerience and every other os out there.. after using Vista for a long time I do prefer it to XP..

that progam and driver compatibility has not catched up to a 7 year old os is not surprising.

I have vista Ultimate.. I have never had a problem.. My brother just got a vista machine and it works perfect. Whats the issue with vista? What am i missing?

Search Google.

You will then have not one persons opinion, but hundreds of thousands.

Yeah... more like hundreds of thousands of people who complain about performance issues on mediocre hardware.

Most problems I've seen are driver-related... no fault of Microsoft's, but more a matter of various hardware vendors dragging their heels. There are isolated incidents with Service Pack 1 (many more with the previous beta releases, which were expected), but far less than there were with Service Pack 2 for Windows XP initially.

The only issue I've ever had with Vista Ultimate in 1½ years was a re-activation problem when I made too many hardware changes at once, months after installation.

It's simply the current entitlement/superiority attitude paired with ancient sheep mentality and people suddenly having a public voice on the net.

Makes you feel so much better if you can diss a product - after all you have your s*** together and could do so much better. Surely not your own fault that you suck...

Vista runs fine on my laptop but it is responsible for the global recession. http://dailybriefing.blo...y-sees-crunch-deepening/

Kinda sad that Symantec can slam Vista and actually look like they got it right.

Pot / Kettle thing, but Vista does suck, so what do you do?

It's like the second to last loser putting down the very last loser on the list.

Doh!

Bring Back CENTRAL POINT SOFTWARE!

PCTools for Windows was AWESOME!

*laughs at you for calling Vista/MSFT a loser*

Disliking a company/product is one thing. Losing all perspective? Priceless.

Whatever, and that's coming from the WORST antivirus software co in the world!!! Their piece of crap AV just kills PCs and they have a nerve to criticize Vista!!!??? what a joke.

Sweet! Another bread-and-butter article for Betanews! Here come the flies.

lol, Symantec famous for providing bloatware has nerve to critise MS .. what a laugth

Considering MSFT had originally locked down the kernel and Symantec *forced* them to open it?

Yeah. It's a laugh alright.

I really hope this message can be made a shining beacon as a response to Symantec and bring those imbeciles down.

Unfortunately they have an extremely strong hold on non tech-savy users (such as the corp IT dept of my largest client :))

Vista sucks, OK. Anything else is new? And well, yes, it really does suck.

Oh! I wouldn't have noticed it humming along just nicely. But now that you mention it I must uninstall it right away!!!

Isn't this a case of the "pot" calling the "kettle" black?

"Symantec disses Vista"

"Microsoft seems to be fighting a losing public relations for Vista"

Quote 1: Makes the editor sound like he's 12.
Quote 2: Missing the word battle between 'relations' and 'for'.

Aren't Symantec part of the group screwing every user over by forcing MSFT to open up the kernel so they can make a profit at our system security's expense?

Yes.

Symantec don't just make terrible products, they also make the host OS terrible too.

Gotta jump on the bandwagon on this one. I heartily recommend to everyone I meet to uninstall everything with Symantec's name attached to it. I had its AV fail me time and time again. I also watched as they bought companies who made superior software then promptly took those products off the market.

A computer without Symantec software on it is faster and more reliable than one with it - period.

Devil, thy name is Symantec.