RSSSymantec goes live with Norton 2010 betas
By Tim Conneally | Published July 6, 2009, 11:59 AM
Last year's update to Norton Antivirus focused on creating the lightest and fastest desktop antivirus offering, although it stuck to tried and true detection and prevention methods. With the threat landscape rapidly changing, and new malware techniques being widely used (server-side polymorphism, sandbox/VM detection, etc) the old signature-based antivirus methods have been rendered inadequate just no longer effective enough. In 2008, for example, there were 1.8 new threat definitions. Not even halfway through 2009, there were already 1.25 million and more being added every day.
It doesn't mean signatures absolutely do not work, but viruses are changing so rapidly that recognition software is struggling to keep its head above water. This is why Symantec is taking a new three-pronged approach to virus protection with Norton 2010. The three additional methods are: application reputation, behavioral malware detection, and increased user education.
An application's reputation is determined by millions of Norton community users who contribute their application data, statistically determining whether a piece of software is trustworthy or not. Sort of like a reverse signature, the most commonly installed applications have credibility and are therefore not classified as threats.
Behavioral malware detection is performed by SONAR 2, Norton 2010's heuristic engine that watches the behavior of the PC and rates every file and every process according to its activity. This develops a sort of running checklist of the reliability of everything on a system at any given time.
Since the user is often the weakest link in a system's defenses, social engineering threats continue to be a major problem. If a system has been infected, Norton 2010's updated gauges describe "in plain English" what happened so novices can quickly understand what went wrong, with enough granularity for more tech savvy users to find out the origin of their infection and what activities it performed.
"This time, we said we wouldn't mess around with the main UI." Dave Cole, Symantec's Senior Director of Product Management told Betanews. "But we introduced a new side, which is not just about apps being good or bad, it's for helping users manage their resources in a visual environment. If someone's just downloaded an app, we'll make all the data we have available to them that is visible. That means reputation data or performance data is exposed for people to self-diagnose."
Norton Internet Security 2010 has finally been endowed with the Brightmail corporate anti-spam engine, which is not based simply on training a system which senders are trustworthy, but is heuristics-based. Additionally, NIS 2010's traditional parental control system can be replaced with a free subscription to onlinefamily.norton.com, the Web-based access control system which Symantec debuted earlier this year.
"Is the parental control software market so small because people don't care, or because the existing software is just no good?" Cole posited, "When we debuted Online Family, we didn't want to use the model based on spyware or restrictions or keyloggers, we wanted a product based on trust. Parents want house rules and transparency, where they are the decision-makers, not the software."
In its availability announcement today, Symantec boasted about one key feature: "Performance: We are determined never to take our eye off that particular ball again." Let's see if it means what it says. Symantec's betas are now available for Windows XP SP2, Vista, and Windows 7 RC.
Looks like the Symantec employees had a field day with voting down posts.
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|Windows XP SP3 FULL UPDATE, Windows Vista SP2 FULL UPATE , and
Windows 7 RC FULL UPDATE. I try all famous ones on these three platform.Thanks Microsoft TEAM you all work for us. Please SAVE WORLD..
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|Turkish: Makinaya bir ?ey tak?nca sadece i?letim sistemi alg?l?yor.Oysa Makinan?n ve ??letim sisteminin güvenli?ini sa?layacak olan güvenlik program? da ayn? vazifeyi yapabilmeli.
English:When I insert usb flash memory or a portable hdd or dvd or cd only OS understands.Also a protector must understand same as OS and must show me what it was.That means must show me something...You inserted a usb flash memory 4gb density and copy or delete or scan them if anything find clean or just open read only....something like this...
Try Beta 15 days...I installed for one day.End of the day I uninstalled. Only one thing was very good.Usage is very soft.
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|What about people who are blind or visually impaired?
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|Hey, it is true! If your computer is able to work 10 times slower, it will get less infected, or at least 10 times slower. That is the secret Symantec keep.
Norton is Bloated, inefficient, bugged and expensive.... Peter Norton must be really sad on what Symantec did with his name.... Since Norton Utilities 5 Norton died as reputable name.
Symantec End Point protection is not as bloated as Norton line, even sharing the same engines. Still I prefer any of the serious competitors, and luckily there are many!
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|I thought the decline started with Norton Utilities 3. And Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager has at least one stupid configuration option (why have an option to make shares available if one needs to put in the rules for it anyways?), as well a management console that you're better off not installing. It also only partially supports x64 servers.
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|beta testers needed for crap ware ....yeah...not in my lifetime...
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|Isn't this the same company that is synonymous with crashware? Isn't it the same company that promotes FUD to get people to buy their products?
If their products were perfect in every way, it would still be difficult for anyone but the faithful to believe that they'd changed. I feel bad for Peter Norton, knowing that his name has been dragged through the mud so many times.
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|Crap. To bulky to be efficient and to many gizmos for end users to manage. Does Symantec really think that adding more and more types of 'scanners' really improves their product? It only makes it even more bulky, slower (yup 50% computing performance gone like the wind baby!), and - less trustworthy. What scanner is next? "Scan & backup your computers pagefile automatically at every startup? - A must have!"
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|Symantec has destroyed their reputation and the only way (if this new version is really good) to prove to users that this latest version is good as what it once was, is to give it away for free and even then they'd have hard time persuading tech savvy people like us they have improved and they are again what they used to be.
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|Windows 7 RC still pops up and complains Norton is not certified and there is a driver issue with "Sonar" which the OS prohibts from running.
This driver issue with the Symantec Framework is something that has been a plague for months.
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|This is resolved in newer builds of Win7
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|Newer than the RC Build which I'm currently running?
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|Symantec Norton Antivirus is the only way to keep a desktop computer protected from viruses. The other desktop antivirus products are just some cheap, crappy software someone slapped together. Mcafee is by far the worst and least accurate out of all of them.
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|Funny.
You *were* being sarcastic, right?
According to AV-Comparatives, Norton is rather consistently scoring well below suites like ESET, G-Data and even McAfee...in both results *and* performance.
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|Actually, according to AV-Comparatives, Norton surpassed nearly all it's competitors in speed and accuracy. It also had fewer false positives than all the freebie solutions everyone likes to promote.
The 2009 versions really put Norton back in the game. Their heuristic detection is still a little weak, but definitions-based defense is really second-to-none.
Link to the latest on-demand scanning results:
http://www.av-comparativ...ondret/avc_report21.pdf
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|point set match to you. I guess PC_Tool and DBB aren't the geeks they thought they were or just can't bother to read or maybe geeks do lie or shade the truth . Screwing the pooch comes to mind but that pooch has been screwed by the writers so many times i sort of feel sorry for the little fellow. Suggest reading the whole report. And No Fatty dropping your turds now just makes you look like a monkey that throws its crap at people. BTW, Hows that hanging turd? do you just pull up your panties and put on your make-up or do you let it drop before doing that?
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|*laughing*
Try a more recent one (yours was from Feb):
http://www.av-comparativ...tivesreviews/main-tests (May 2009)
Though the performance tests *are* a little older:
http://www.av-comparativ...views/performance-tests (October 2008)
@howee
Wow. The maturity level of that post was astounding. Let me guess, Mommy left the room for a half-hour or so (how long I figure it must have taken you to string all those big words together) to go cry about what a horrible job she did with you?
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|Your choice on Av covers only one week. the Feb. Scan covers 8 months. and come PC_Tool, you can do better than a lame response than you gave. Maybe you and fattty and internetworld are actually in the same boat that is slowly sinking. Just goes to show that those that call themselves geeks always engage in shading the truth. I wonder how your boss feels about your time and posting?
Why don't we ask. Oh the lies we tell both ourselves, our bosses and our wives.
Other than that, your comments are not worth much. And to sum up in one post- I just love people that nitpick on a posting on grammar.. Says more about the person than anything else. Critique an article cause they get paid but posting ?? that's so childish.
End of discussion cause you aint worth the time. Someone once said this isn't your playground and I would agree.
All hail PC_Tool the "King of Geekdom". sounds about as creepy as referring to Jackson as the "King of Pop" despite his *love* of children
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|Wow.
For someone who doesn't think it's "worth the time" you certainly went all out, eh?
"Your choice on Av covers only one week. the Feb. Scan covers 8 months"
Who cares who long it covers? How long does it take you to run a few tests?
"I wonder how your boss feels about your time and posting?"
I feel just fine about it. ;)
"And to sum up in one post- I just love people that nitpick on a posting on grammar.. Says more about the person than anything else. Critique an article cause they get paid but posting ?? that's so childish."
*laughing* Try, please...do try and make at least a *little* sense?
"Someone once said this isn't your playground and I would agree."
Nope. The world is my playground. This is just where I go to pick on the dumb kids and enjoy the occasional rational discussion with one or two of the few folks here who actually can use more than 3 brain cells.
"All hail PC_Tool the "King of Geekdom"."
*laughing* ooh...you mock me. Some anonymous twit on teh intarwebz is mocking me! The Horror! The Humanity! Oh, wait...that's right, I couldn't care less.
Keep up the maturity level, man. It's just so pathetically amusing watching you post the equivalent of digital drool.
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|We agree on one point. Neither gives a crap what people here think.
Oh the horror of it all.
Actually, Pc, this has been a test to show that the internet and forums have a long way to go before they can be considered legitimate. Take the word crap. Now coding on a forum to filter vulgarity is not rocket science. So if I type s***, you see how it is represented. Yet , in the narrow wanabee kingdom of betanews, they can't even get simple coding to filter this word. So thank you for participating in this test and proving that the internet has a long way to go before it can be a reliable source of information and sites have a long way to go before they are fit for grown-ups.
BTW, the next test will be on Twitter and will again prove my point.
we now return to the children's hour of power
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|Whatever happened to:
"End of discussion cause you aint worth the time. "
Ah well, best laid plans and all...
Nice try with the whole "it's a test" bit. So the internet is full of trolls? Wow. Nice bit of deduction there, Captain Obvious. For your next trick, conduct a test to see if you have any functioning brain cells left. I bet people will be *really* impressed with that one. ;)
[Bugs Bunny]
(Ain't I a stinker?) [/Bugs Bunny]
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|@PC_Tool - Actually the AV tests that you and others posted links to simply indicate that Mcafee and other AV software have finally caught up to Symantec's antivirus software in terms of accuracy and performance. Of course it would help if the AV tests would post the version numbers that consumers see on the box instead of the version number manufacturers use internally. In any case, Symantec NAV 2010 will probably surpass its competition once again like it always has with every single version ever created.
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|"NAV 2010 will probably surpass its competition once again like it always has with every single version ever created."
*laughing*
someone didn't actually follow the links. Nice reality-distortion goggles. Where'd you get 'em?
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|The ones that complain the most are still using horror stories from years past. They are loosing out if they don't give this software a fair trial. It completely installs and uninstalls in less then a minute. Bloat! Hardly. CPU usage? 4%...I've used Norton products since the soft floppies and have NEVER contracted a virus. I can't tell you the number of attacks over the years but Norton caught them in time...
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|mflip,
You have to be kidding, yet I cannot find any sarcasm in your post! Perhaps you missed a line?
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|Tool,
Re your query "googles", 't'was probably "Beer Googles". Ya dummy ya oughta try 'em some time.
However, flaming aside, most definitely on your side on this one (sic), cherish the moment.
Use NOD32 on 4 notebooks, it is infallible in so much as any AV can be considered as such. However, must stress have been guilty of using the DVT version of the corporate offer from this mob, indeed it is quite a different animal from their consumer products.
I guess to each his own when it comes to an AV, but what is improtant to me is low footprint, quick scanning, and so it goes.
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|not sure what is worst, the cure or the disease.
buyer beware, installing a 14 day free trial may actually cost you 14 additional days to get the system back as it was before the trail ware.
there is a reason why symancrap and mccrapafee have earned unfavorable reputations.
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|What, they'll bloat it again by the next 5 years till Norton 2015 and then sell Norton 2016 which'll be a slimmed down "fast" version.
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|I'd like to echo what PC_Tool said. Further to that, if Norton/Symantec have managed to make a good product I'm afraid they'd probably be better off renaming it because their name is so far dragged through the s*** that I imagine it's nearly irreparable.
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|"In 2008, for example, there were 1.8 new threat definitions. "
teehee...
Would love to see some performance/resource usage specs.
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|What a useless set of comments. Not one person seems to have run the beta mentioned - or even last year's products.
First, Norton has done quite well on av-comparatives, av-test.org, Virus Bulletin and ICSA testing. They have not dominated - but they the results have been consistently strong in all areas except in static files pro-active testing (scanning new viruses with old signature files). Particually the test by av-comparatives have shown that to be a weakness for them.
However, one of the features they are touting this year is a new heuristic engine - so maybe they fixed that issue. Let's wait for the test results.
Performance - their performance last year was amazing - not only startlingly better then they did in the past, but head and shoulders above the competition. Complaints about bloatware are just way out of date.
I installed the beta. So far so good - it is using about 7 MB of RAM as I type - compared to AVG using approx 50 MB. Has anyone else looked at the actual memory use of these types of products?
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|You can see the specs from last spring here:
http://www.passmark.com/AVReport
No test results for the new product yet.
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|Ok - first set of detection tests are in -
See - http://www.pcmag.com/art...2/0,2817,2349868,00.asp
"Norton's performance was absolutely stellar. It scored 8.0 of 10 points for malware removal, beating previous top scorer Panda Internet Security 2010. It also set a new record on the malware blocking test: 9.6 points, trumping Prevx 3.0, the previous champion and our Editors' Choice for standalone anti-malware. "
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|Interesting.
I did note, however, that both ESET and G-Data, both of which have scored higher in past tests through AV-Comparatives, are not anywhere on the list of products tested.
It is also surprising that MSE scored so low (and that they do not call it a suite...).
Any links to their testing methodology? I'd like to compare it with that used by AV-Comparatives or VBs.
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