[danwdoo]

Originally Posted by GreenMonkey

Norton got a bad rap in the early 2000s. It got much better at some point. That said, any AV is going to cause some overhead (file scanning, etc).

I personally use Norton without issue at home. I'm a IT security professional at work, so I've been getting some free Symantec for a while since we're a Symantec shop. It runs fine these days.

A bad rap implies an undeserved reputation. It was 100% deserved. Things got better after they did a major rewrite for 360 but they have become bloated again. They try to sell to many new features (have to justify new versions every year) instead of focusing on core needs and performance. Testimonies like ones in this very thread verify this is still the case.

Originally Posted by GreenMonkey

Windows Defender doesn't cut it. Defender / MSE used to be good, but it tests terribly now - I think because they're the first malware authors expect to dodge (as it is default on so many installations). It simply doesn't cut it any more.

Granted there is room for much improvement here. But it on an regularly updated system with common sense practices is enough.

Originally Posted by GreenMonkey

I can tell you as a security professional, there are people like me working at companies actively hunting malware and submitting it to reputable malware companies - as well as the malware research going on. It's worth a few bucks a year (not a lot, but a few, given the 40% detection rate of AV these days) to run something decent. IMO that's Symantec / Kaspersky / NOD32.

My comment was only about Norton, not al AV suites such as Kaspersky or Malwarebytes (of which I've had good experiences with in the past, but do not currently use their suites). I periodically run Malwarebytes scanner as a second opinion

Originally Posted by GreenMonkey

If you're going to go free, you're better off with Avast or the like these days. Can't believe I'm saying that. I used to install MSE all the time. Testing shows it's pretty awful these days. For example: https://www.av-test.org/en/antivirus/home-windows/

Other free options are not bad choices other than the tendency at least in many of them to nag for upgrades.

Originally Posted by GreenMonkey

Are you sure? Do you regularly review the network traffic coming out of your firewall for suspicious traffic, as well as reviewing actively running services, and Windows scheduler entries / registry start up entries?

I see people claim the above a lot ("I haven't had a virus") because they don't understand that a good handful of modern malware is VERY quiet unless you know what you are looking for. I find malware for a living and after a few months with an install I can't be sure I'm not infected without doing those things. A lot of malware is quiet as they are simply using your machine as a botnet / remote jumpoff point to attack others. I'd hazard a guess that all you can say is you haven't had any obvious malware (banking trojans, adware, etc).

Quite. I've been comfortably using network trace tools for many years. Again, updates and safe browsing practices (and running as a non-admin user!) mitigate the overwhelming majority of issues. I'm not saying Defender is the only or best choice, just that Norton is a poor one based on system performance hits (not effectiveness). Also many "Windows" problems can be traced to AV software such as Norton (and some others) that try to do to much and insert themselves into too many functions of the OS. As stated earlier, why trust software that can't even uninstall itself properly half the time?