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July 15, 2008 6:03 AM PDT

Norton 2009 products open to public beta

On Monday, Symantec opened two of its Norton 2009 products to public beta. Both Norton Internet Security 2009 and Norton Antivirus 2009 feature new code that not only makes the scans and services run faster, but consume fewer system resources, says Tom Powledge, vice president of consumer product management.

As an example, Powledge said that where Norton Internet Security 2006 consumed roughly 300MB of hard-disk space, the 2009 version is coming in around 100MB. Symantec has achieved this, in part, by reducing a number of redundancies introduced over the years. For example, previous versions of NIS contained multiple copies of the antivirus signature database.

For antivirus protection, faster and lighter has been achieved by focusing only on the files that have changed. As hard drives fill with digital photos and songs--files that typically do not change--Norton is able to mark them as trusted and then ignore them on subsequent scans. Powledge says this results in big gains in speed, reducing the time it takes to scan large drives.

Also, in order to keep up with the ever-changing malware loose on the Internet today, the 2009 products with be updated every 15 minutes or so with new signature files.

The public betas are available here. As with any beta software, you should make a full system backup first, and not run it on your main computer system.

Norton screenshot

Norton Internet Security 2009 features a new interface with most of the controls just one click away. (Click image for a slightly larger view.)

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Add a Comment (Log in or register) 17 comments
by BobCozzi July 15, 2008 6:47 AM PDT
Sound great, but!!! Do they let you turn it off? The biggest problem I've had with Norton and McAfee is that I can't find the "temporarily turn off Virus Protection" button anymore. It used to be easy, now it is effectively impossible, short of uninstalling them, which I've done and moved on to another product for its simplicity.
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by madflacker July 15, 2008 7:07 AM PDT
Agree w/ Mr. Cozzi. I always seem to experience a lot more pain from Norton and McAfee than benefits. Stupid warnings about sites that are clearly safe. Constant update reminders. Constant harping to renew subscriptions.
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by amardeshbd July 15, 2008 7:14 AM PDT
i don't want my pc to die so early :p ! long live norton ! thats enough for me !
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by livecrunch July 15, 2008 7:26 AM PDT
Sweet ! So is there possibility to test it ?
ill blog about it later on.

Thanks for info.
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by thedreaming July 15, 2008 8:27 AM PDT
Let me get this straight, a product that's known to hog system resources, slow down pc performance, and let malware slip past now has an open beta for the latest product? No thanks, I'll stick with AVG. It hasn't let me down yet.
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by mddmx July 15, 2008 8:45 AM PDT
Well said by thedreaming. Norton AV IS the virus. Not a chance!
Reply to this comment
by alegr July 15, 2008 9:40 AM PDT
If you use NAV, periodically check kernel memory usage in Task Manager. You might be up to unpleasant surprise. May have to reboot periodically.
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by dschrader July 15, 2008 10:43 AM PDT
In regard to BobCozzi's question, yes, you can temporarily turn off real-time scanning by right clicking on the icon in the task bar. The same action lets you turn on "Silent Mode" where all non-critical alerts, pop-ups and tasks are surpressed. The product will go into silent mode automatically when you start a full screen movie or game.

In regard to thedreaming's (and alegr's) comments - The new products include a CPU usage monitor right on the main screen so you can easily track CPU utilization - both total and that from all Norton processes. We also provide a more detailed views of CPU utilization, memory, tasks running and a view of every process running and its security status. It is a useful tool.

I am aware of only one test of the performance of security products. If you are interested, surf over to http://www.passmark.com/ftp/antivirus-performance-testing-ed3.pdf.

Dan Schrader
Symantec
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by guest86 July 15, 2008 10:07 PM PDT
I know Norton still sucks. Other anti-virus beat Norton. Norton can't beat other powerful anti-virus. I have McAfee with Lifetime update. No charge and no need pay everyday for 1 year or more. Never end or expire. Stop waste your money to paid again, again at stores. We paid for gas with higher price. Download free powerful anti-virus and your PC will stay forever protect for many years. Serious. AVG and Norton are bottom neck. Go to McAfee all way. I love McAfee forever and have no problems so far! Norton company must throw free Norton 2009 to all people to install all our computers. We don't have to pay for that. This is free for all. Enjoy. You must be happy not waste your money for paid other anti-virus and other product again, again. People need stop complain and stop pay on high price on any softwares in all stores.
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by guest86 July 15, 2008 10:58 PM PDT
I add more info from me. Here I explain more deep for my history about my old Norton 2005 Security.

Now I am stopped to buy anti-virus or anti-spyware at stores! Stores are sucks and waste your money for it. Get FREE from internet.

You will get very annoy pops up when you download many files from internet. I have Norton 2005 with Security. I download many files and cause Norton to catch many, many viruses like Trojan Horses. Auto pop ups about over 300 to 500 times and keep pop ups. Pop ups can't be stopped! When you click ok on button by Norton and pop ups will be back, back again, again. Viruses can't be delete by Norton easily. Now I am blamed on Norton. I did delete Norton out of my PC and install McAfee in my computer and McAfee found warning and McAfee kill/blast of thousands of viruses to remove extreme hard out of my PC! Means you cannot remove Trojan Horses out easily by AVG or Norton. I really ANGRY on Norton and AVG! Shame on AVG and Norton like same as Windows Vista! I stick with Windows XP forever! People will be warned don't use this product! Norton disable all your services hidden on your PC what you cannot see! Fix your services to turn on all. Go to Start, run - type (services.msc) and make sure all programs must not disable!!! Set on Manual and Auto. To make all programs to work like such as Aol Instant Messenger(AIM), Yahoo, MSN, etc. That all. That why reason Norton hurt my feelings. I paid Norton for $70.00 at Staples store in year 2006. I don't trust Norton anymore. Now I am sad and unhappy on Norton product.
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by durox_cj July 16, 2008 2:47 AM PDT
right on, give me the beta! NOT!
there are for sure products, worse than NAV, but none of them have the same pupularity and high prices! :}:}
listen to them, how are they selling to the stupid (no offense intended:) ) the NAV 09.. it's better, smaller and faster. i heard this story since 2001; i have installed each edition of their products, every year, just to make sure i was right about it :):). i have a cd with files, that come out clean when scanned with NAV or NOD32, and believe me, there's nothing clean about that cd :) - the experiment is dated in 2007, and at that date, avg, antivirxp, bitdefender, they all detected the evil :)

mr Dan Schrader, why doesnt norton get it? any person with a bit of common sense regarding IT, knows that NAV is not the way to stay protected! your products use lots of ram - it never refreshes the ram used, it just grows bigger until restart, it uses the CPU more than other products/solutions, and it doesn't protect like it says it does. take for ex, bitdefender, or zonealarm (for firewall). now these guys, make some FINE products...
Reply to this comment
by pgm554 July 16, 2008 9:03 AM PDT
BETA RELEASE?

Don't they mean Alpha?

Their released product is usually the beta!
Reply to this comment
by maurice--2008 July 21, 2008 2:24 PM PDT
The trouble with Norton is that is all about money - the on line Norton Account is a shambles & does not reflect what you have purchased.

They are never clear on what a user requires for "full" protection. For example, with IS 2009 do you also need to purchase Norton Confidential & Norton Anti Bot?
They also have the cheek to ask for support payment.

Norton 360 is not the answer - it mixes security with cleaning/backup tools (bloat ware or crap ware )
Reply to this comment
by Myrrh.Antolini July 30, 2008 10:08 AM PDT
I've never had a malware slip when I had Norton. Sometimes worms would try to get in through Limewire. Norton would block those buggers cold. It's never let me down.

But I gotta admit, NIS 2008 was too much of a resource hogger. It took my computer almost 10 minutes to start up because the system was waiting for NIS to finish loading.

NIS 2009 however, looks very promising. I have the Beta installed right now and one very noticeable change is the start-up time. NIS 2009 loads in an instant. In fact, it's the first program to load. Its usage meter usually says 4 percent. While scanning, it can spike up to as much as 42% but it drops to around the 14-20-percent range.

I also have my own process manager (from Tune-Up Utilities) and according to that, the Symantec processes only use up about 13,000 KB of memory in total (sometimes they use 9000 KB of memory, it depends). That's a big difference.

When is NIS 2009 going to be available for purchase? (I hope there's a promo, please, please, please... a few dollars off would mean a lot.)
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