Two Months without an Antivirus

No, in fact it is quite the opposite!

For a little over a year I had no antivirus on my computer at home because I thought them to be extremely resource-consuming and unnecessary given my configuration and my knowledge. I had tested several solutions previously—free, commercial—but they always seemed bloated and slowed down my computer. That’s why, when I was invited to attend a presentation of the latest version of Norton’s Antivirus—no, sorry, security suite Norton Internet Security 2009 (NIS 2009 for friends) I went there filled with prejudice.

It was Rowan Trollope, Vice President of the Division of Consumer Products at Norton, who had come to Paris to tell us of his baby. He had, after all, more or less staked his career on this version, as he explained to me during a long conversation we had after his presentation.

We were entitled to a heap of numbers: more than 500 000 man hours of development, 300 improvements in performance, 1-minute installation, significant reduction in the number of files to scan and, therefore, the time to do so… In summary, what we were supposed to get is that NIS 2009 is fast and light; fast and light as never witnessed before: able to turn on a machine with 256 KB of RAM, smart enough not to disturb the user of the computer and not to scan files that we know are “trusted” thanks to Insight technology.

After the presentation of the product I was able, as I have already said, to discuss at length with Rowan and by the end of the evening I only wanted to do one thing: test this miracle of computer engineering.

I would like to make a short "disclaimer": I was able to test NIS 2009 because I was offered a copy with a year of protection for 3 PCs. Sure, I could have downloaded the trial version on the site, but I am not dumb either. That said, I am known to be quite unpleasant and to criticize even gifts, so what follows is honestly what I think.

Back home, even if it was late, I could not help but to turn on the PC and install immediately. First test, is the installation time really under minute?

The answer: No. But almost. I spent some time filling out forms to create my account and activate, etc. The installation itself may have lasted less than a minute, but the experience in itself probably lasted just under 10, and that is what I remember.

That aside, everything else is true! When I say “Two Months without an Antivirus” it is just because it has been 2 months since I installed NIS I have barely noticed it. From time to time I see a small message, telling me that the current scan will stop because I am back.

Once, on my work computer (yes, I have also installed it on my machine at the office) an update didn’t go well. NIS automatically connected to the support servers (there’s free support, by the way, even if I have not needed to the call them for the moment) and offered a step-by-step procedure to solve my problem; and it worked, which is the most important.

A conclusion then? I like NIS 2009. It is undeniable that today it is vital to protect ourselves, or risk becoming a spammer robot or losing data. How can you not appreciate protection against the millions of threats around today when it is imperceptible? Now, will I renew my NIS subscription in 10 months? I’ll have the answer when the time comes, and it will depend only on my budget. Worst case scenario: I will take only the antivirus, instead of the complete security suite.

So you’re still here? How about a video of the Symantec meeting of September 18th: