Symantec unleashes Norton 360

Symantec, the world's largest PC antivirus maker, on Monday unleashed Norton 360, the company's latest salvo in the battle for consumer security dollars.

Norton 360 is Symantec's new flagship consumer security product, unseating its Norton Internet Security suite. First announced a year ago under the Genesis code name, Norton 360 includes a host of technologies, many from Symantec's current security, PC optimization and backup products. Yet Symantec said it didn't just cobble together existing wares for Norton 360; many of the features are brand-new. (CNET Review: Norton 360.)

"It is all-in-one security for the mainstream PC user who wants a product that is going to take care of things for them," said Tom Powledge, director of product management at Symantec. "We didn't want to make it a big old kitchen sink. We're not playing the feature game. We want to make the features right for every customer."

Norton 360 is designed to compete with the latest products from McAfee as well as security newcomer Microsoft, which shipped Windows Live OneCare last May. Following Microsoft's lead, all of the latest security products combine basic antivirus, antispyware and firewall technologies with backup features and several tune-up tools for Windows PCs--features Symantec and McAfee traditionally charged extra for.

Microsoft's entry into the market has heightened competition for consumers' security dollars. In 2005, the worldwide market for consumer antivirus software reached $1.95 billion, up 17 percent year over year, according to research from Gartner. Symantec dominated the space, taking a 70 percent piece of the pie.

Norton 360 is part of Symantec's broader vision for the next generation of online security, coined Security 2.0. The company sees a major role for itself in restoring consumers' trust in online commerce. As such, Norton 360 includes technologies to protect online transactions in addition to techniques to block traditional threats from malicious software.

Norton 360 is now available for purchase through the Symantec online store and is slated to be on store shelves in March. The suggested retail price is $79.99 for use on up to three PCs and including one year of updates, which is $10 more than Norton Internet Security.

Symantec plans to offer Norton Internet Security users an upgrade deal to Norton 360 and will ship the new product through PC partners and other bundling deals.

[Ernie Munroe]

Symantec unleashes Norton 360

When one buys Norton products and there is problem with it, Norton doesn't want to hear from you and you are completely on your own. Therfore I will never have another Norton piece of software on my computer.

[onlyauser]

Better off without Norton

This Norton release must show massive improvements over previous Norton products or it is a good reason to continue to avoid anything Norton.

I recently stopped using Norton products in favor of a competing product and have not been happier Norton is off my system.

Will never go back to Norton unless spectacular change is noted in security software reviews.

[clr36]

Norton Blows

Norton was a good product at one time when Norton was in charge. But it has turn into a computer plague. It updates and then crashes your pc. It will just stop the internet from working and you have to restore a day or two back. Then try again to update in a couple days. You just neverknow when a update is going to go south on you. I have removed it from all of my customers machines. McAfee is not any better, I a a pc I trying to clean up now. They just did a McAfee up date on friday and now McAfee crashes as soon as you load the OS. I like AVG Free works, it just doesn't have a firewall to track out going. But windows xp firewall will keep people out from the net. The big guys try to monitor to much on your pc, just keep it simple.
Clint

[Far Star]

Old meet new

Firstly I'm not a fan of Symantec. I've tried and uninstalled every version of Norton from 2003 to 2007 because of bloat and their massive system resource needs.

Having said that, I'm willing to give it a try. If Sysmatec has truely redone things from the ground up (as stated) than I want to see with my own eyes. I remember a day when the word 'Norton' wasn't a IT swear word. It'd be nice to go back to those days.

I'll still keep my Trend Micro installer handy just in case. :)

[pentium4forever]

XP Firewall only blocks incoming traffic

You mention you use the Windows XP Firewall.....it doesn't fully provide superb protection in that it only blocks inbound traffic, not outbound. If a worm or something gets in nothing will stop it from calling out and doing further damage. They include outbound protection in Vista's firewall although from my understanding you have to configure some rules which for the average joe might be too much to do. ZoneAlarm free version I highly recommend. The latest version is 38MB and it includes the whole suite although you can choose to install just the firewall.

[timber2005]

Problems in the Review, C|Net needs fix

http://reviews.cnet.com/Norton_360/4505-3667_7-32330411.html

"Norton 360 works only on Windows XP and Windows Vista. Oddly, not even OneCare works on Vista (that's still in beta)"
CORRECTION: OneCare Live 1.5 (The beta) ended and products shipped January 30th/31st, and all users got the updates the week before. Its FULLY Vista Compatable.

"Our setup of the final shipping version was surprisingly fast and easy. Norton 360 requires 300MB of hard drive space, considerably less than Windows Live OneCare"
OneCare Live 1.5 uses 132.00MB of space on all 4 of my computers.

[timber2005]

OneCare 1.5 News Release from C|Net

http://news.com.com/Microsoft+goes+global+with+antivirus+tool+update/2100-7355_3-6152552.html
Jan 23rd, release Jan 30th, Vista compatable is the first/second sentence.

[JorisEvers]

Review will be corrected

Hi,

We're correcting the review to note that OneCare is available for Vista. Thanks for noticing the mistake!

Joris Evers
CNET News

[john55440]

Typical Robert Vamosi Review

Robert Vamosi's reviews have a strong anti-Microsoft bias, and he doesn't let little things like facts get in the way.

[Penguinisto]

...does that come in a Linux version?

(heh - I slay me sometimes... ;) )

Hope it works for y'all. Glad I don't have an OS that requires all that crap or anything like it...

/P

[alegr]

Mee too

I, too, have an OS which doesn't require an antivirus. It's called Windows XP.
Antivirus is just a lame substitute for discipline. And the first rule is: No working as Administrator. Regular User only. No Administrator privileges to kids and clueless spouse.

[richto]

At least...

At least it will just install and we wont have to 'compile it' beforehand lol. What a joke Linux is.

[vm019302]

"Unleashes"?

Like the way Symantec "unleashed" its offshored customer support on its customers?

[erindorn]

So where's the testing?

I'm a former Norton user. Great for virus protection, but it got progressively worse at system maintenance with each windows upgrade. How does this version work to maintain the registry? Does it have a better defragmenting tool? Where's the antispam protection? It seems that this is just a more polished version of the last few efforts, and despite the spin, it sure looks like a cobbled-together product. How does it compare to the competition for performance, both detection and system drag? Let's see some greater detail if you're calling this a review.

[erindorn]

So where's the testing?

I'm a former Norton user. Great for virus protection, but it got progressively worse at system maintenance with each windows upgrade. How does this version work to maintain the registry? Does it have a better defragmenting tool? Where's the antispam protection? It seems that this is just a more polished version of the last few efforts, and despite the spin, it sure looks like a cobbled-together product. How does it compare to the competition for performance, both detection and system drag? Let's see some greater detail if you're calling this a review.

[pentium4forever]

Suggestion to Symantec: Lower prices!

I hear a lot of stories and read a lot about Norton really bogging down computer system's performance. As for McAfee, the last version I used was 8.0 which I couldn't stand, it made my system so poky. Previous versions 6.x, and 7.x of McAfee would great. Anyhow, I switched to AVG which works great and doesn't hog all the system resources.

Suggestion to Symantec: Lower your prices! $80 is too high!

[manoj_s1]

Issues with Norton 360

I have activated Norton 360 yesterday. After that I tried purchasing some additional online storage space. That's when the problem started.

1) How to buy additional space? When I click the relevant option in the software, it takes me to the Great Britan (!!) site. There I try logging in with my normal name and password, nothing happens! It asks for the password again! Has anyone bought additional space at Symantec online site?

2) No one can tell me how the data will be encrypted during internet transmission. Also how will it be stored? What prevents it from being seen by Symantec employees? Except two brief lines of description on the website, I cannot find anything anywhere. The help files, technical support team and other resources is of no help.

It is strange considering Symantec is a security company.

3) Local backup on an external hard disk is very slow. Takes 30 minutes or more to backup a few (incremental) files worth a few MB.

Is it me or anyone else has similar issues?

[Last of the Hot Potatoes]

Norton 360 Secure backup? Don't count on it!

I also bought Norton 360 and have started using the backup routine. You click to open the backup dialogue to change the preferences and it spends five minutes housekeeping before it takes any notice of you. When it actually runs the backup, Norton seem to have made sure that not only is the upload speed extra slow even if you are backing up locally, but also it is not incremental so it takes a woeful amount of time to backup even a few changed files.

Norton Antivirus old hands won't be very surprised by any of that. What is special is that during the five weeks I have been using the backup, my account on Norton?s server has been corrupted twice. I lost connectivity for about ten days or so on the first occasion. On the second occasion, well, I'll let you know when it's working again. When I contacted the support team I was given the very worst service and was told I had corrupted my installation and needed to uninstall and reinstall my Norton 360 software. When I told them that I knew categorically that there was a server side issue (I'm a software architect) they lead me around the houses for about a week and I got no satisfaction. All of a sudden, a few days later the backup starts working again.

As this is now happening again, it occurs to me that if I need to restore, I am in trouble. The Norton Backup is a poorly designed application. The best advice is DO NOT USE IT.

[jamescook1]

norton 360 usage report - memory leak

I purchased Norton 360 3 months ago after 3 years with norton products. The system became VERY slow, I removed all services etc. I didn't need but still it was like slow motion. I figured the RAM was too low (128RAM) and could see the system swapping all the time....so I upgraded with an additional 512MB RAM.
At least now the system start was quick, and I could use the laptop ... for a time. But I noticed the same old degradation as before - and looked into it.
The culprit is Norton's ccSvcHst.exe process which just hogs more and more resources (Virtual Memory) until the system is unusable again. (e.g. after 12 hours it has 1.2 GB virtual memory listed in the task manager)
Symantec support next to useless
Has anyone else noticed this problem (not the ccSvcHst shutdown error - more a ccSvcHst memory leak error)?
Better still does anyone know how to solve it?

[RACON2R]

Too Problematic

The 360 is a great concept but it is far more trouble than it is worth. The auto protect turns itself off frequently; about three times per week, causing me to reboot. There is a multi-step manual process to resolve the problem, but the fix only lasts about 3 days.

Tech support is moderately helpful but in the end you are left uninstalling and reinstalling, which I have done once already. That worked...for about two weeks. The problem is back. At this moment, I can see in the system tray that my auto protect is off.

Stick with Norton's standard internet security.

The 360 product is horrible.