Symantec Norton AntiVirus - 10.0.0.1

OK, I have used NAV for years and thought there must be something better out there. I searched for comparisons to Kaspersky, Virusbarrier, ClamAV and Virex but they are all either very dated, have no factual data and are simply flames and personal likes/dislikes or simply do not offer any usable data.

First of all, ALL work fine with Snow Leopard, contrary to wild posts and flames here. NAV initially did not support the auto-protect feature (disabled by default when installing Snow Leopard) but no problems other than having to manually scan. This was fixed within 10 days of Snow Leopard release and installed itself with the normal software update. No need to remove, download, configure, etc. anything - just let it do a routing autoupdate. This was clearly stated on the Symantec web page (along with a lame excuse that Snow Leopard was new and they had not had a chance to test it prior to it's release. Come on, even I had a chance to play with it prior to it being released).

First I used Virex in past and had conflicts and trouble installing and updating software whenever it was running. Most installation routines advise you to disable antivirus software and I think this program is the reason why. Other than that no real problems, but I kept forgetting to disable it and then had to figure out how to fix things when my install went south.

NAV 11, unlike prior versions, is not a CPU hog. I do not know how much memory it actually takes but Activity Monitor shows 98 Megs for NortonAutoProtect, and 98 Megs for SymAVScanDaemon. At rest Activity Monitor shows 0% CPU use. Downloading software/web searching it peaks intermittently at up to 5% which is really not bad at all. I do not note any slow downs or difference in anything with it installed or not. I know it does pick up viruses as I have had email attachments, and even a web page I visited found to be infected. I rarely do a full system scan; I just let it run in the background checking everything read/written to my hard disk. Best of all for me, despite the warnings, I never disable it to install software or updates. I left everything standard, which even checks archived folders during a scan. Status and actions are available by the unobtrusive Symantec menu item.

Intego VirusBarrier looks really cool and I really wanted to like it. Installs easily and no problems running it. Not sure if I like the alien spaceship appearing interface, but it is unique. No slow downs noted doing anything. I did not try installing anything with it running. I do not like that it has both a menu item, and a doc item showing at all time. Why not one or the other? Despite the manufacture claims of <1% CPU use it used 2-4% CPU while in sitting in the background, and up to 20% CPU while downloading/surfing. Not enough to notice a slow down, but certainly not what I had expected or a reason to change AV brands. Manual, full scans fly compared to NAV. NAV takes 5 hours to scan my whole system including archives while this seems to keep track of prior scans and is faster each time you use it. About 3 hours for the first full scan and just under 2 for subsequent scans.

Kaspersky costs less than either. Installed easily and no problems with it. I did not try installing anything with it running. For me it was a bit hard to figure out when it was doing anything other than when I manually scanned my disk. I know on the PC there is the menu icon and it changes based on updating, scanning, being out of date, etc. but not so on the Mac. No real issues and I am sure that I could have figured it out, but when I quit the manual scanner I was not sure if it was protecting in the background or not. Scan speed is reasonable at 2 hours, however I saw no indication that is scanned archived files. NAV scans in an hour if I disable scanning of archives.

ClamXav installs easily, and scans are reasonably fast. I could not "get into it" and was not sure if it was still running/autoprotecting when it was closed. There was on icon or menu item indicating that it was doing anything when I quit it. Perhaps it works in the background or perhaps it only works when it is running. The price certainly is good!

For me, I want something that works in the background but I can see if it is running. I want it unobtrusive and not to take tons of CPU (certainly not enough to slow me down). I need it "idiot proof" so that if I forget to disable it nothing bad happens. Memory is less of an option (I have 4 GB in my MacBook) and to be honest money is a consideration but none of these cost enough that I would miss a mortgage payment as a result.

For now I will stick with NAV. I think VirusBarrier would be my second choice, followed by either ClamXav or Kaspersky.

It's incredible that for as long as everyone has known Apple was developing OS X 10.6 that Norton has not updated their virus application to support it.

I would recommend that everyone switch to Virus Barrier X5 which has been updated.