McAfee or Norton?

Question

Which makes the better firewall/antivirus, and why?

Answer 1

IN SHORT:
McAfee - FAR better than Norton.

IN LONG:
When it comes to antivirus software, I believe you should not go cheap (aka free). Free products ARE better than nothing, but commercial products, in my opinion, have better chances of success and better chances of catching newer viruses.

Which would you rather, go to a doctor with 6 months experience or go to a doctor with 25 years of experience? I want the experience so my chances of being misdiagnosed are far less.

For business, I recommend McAfee. For enterprise environment, McAfee Enterprise Edition is a great product that is highly manageable and easily installed. McAfee has been making quality antivirus software for at least 20 years - they generally know what they are doing. I've used them in a large environment before with almost ZERO conflict with any installed program (the one exception I can recall was Corel Easy CD Creator in the mid 90's). They update virus definitions quickly and in my experience, a well updated network running McAfee will have a very LOW chance of experiencing a virus outbreak.

For business, I DO NOT recommend Symantec. While things may well have changed in recent years, a few years back, I tried installing a current version of Symantec Antivirus Corporate edition on a Windows 2000 Terminal Server 6 months after 2000 was released. Symantec did not support terminal services. McAfee had been working great on terminal services EVEN IN BETA VERSIONS OF 2000 for months prior to it's release. (I'm sure the current version supports Terminal Services, my point is, I find it difficult to excuse their slow progress in keeping the product compatible with current technologies). A couple years later there was a couple of highly publicized virus outbreaks. My company was hit with one the day of the outbreak early in the morning. By midafternoon, McAfee had definitions to remove the virus. Another company I consulted for used Symantec. They were hit as well and they used Symantec. Symantec took two days to release a non "beta" definition file - they did release a tool to clean it - MANUALLY. Had we used Symantec at the larger company I worked for it would have required hundreds of man-hours to clean the systems using the manual symantec tool. McAfee covered us in hours.

For home use, I still lean towards McAfee, though I'll admit not as strongly as with corporate. McAfee doesn't do nearly as much messing with your system that Norton does, but I have seen it occasionally interfere with e-mail, when it's on-demand email scanning is enabled. But that was only once on one client's system.

I do NOT recommend NORTON ANTIVIRUS at all (for that matter, I do NOT recommend MOST norton products - the last product they made that didn't slow down the computer more than it sped it up was the Norton Utilities for Windows 3.1 in the early 90's). My reasons are similar to corporate. The norton definition files can be significantly slow in being released. Further, it seems whenever there is a new service pack or even AOL version, Norton has a tendency to conflict with something. I've seen issues where it couldn't install after being uninstalled because norton still leaves registry settings and files behind - they have a special tool to remove it completely - the simple need for such a tool is, in my opinion, a glaring example of why Norton is poorly programmed.

If you really don't consider your computer's safety and reliability important to you, then by all means, use a free product such as AVG, Avast, AntiVir, ClamAV, or another free product.

Trend, BitDefender, CA's product, and the various others may be just fine. But I trust experience and my data is important to me, so I'll pay for protecting it (until I switch to linux).

Here are some links with reviews:
http://www.pcmag.com/category2/0,1738,4796,00.asp
http://anti-virus-software-review.toptenreviews.com/
(If they are outdated and don't respond, please let me know).

Some notes:

One virus software may claim to find 50,000 viruses and nother 150,000 - this doesn't mean that one is better than the other - it means one considers each variant of a virus a unique virus where another considers all variants to be under one virus.

These are my opinions, based on my more than 11 years of professional experience and 16 years of personal experience. Others may feel differently and have different experiences.

And remember, NOTHING is 100% certain. Most programs have hueristics that have varying degrees of success, but the best way to identify a virus is through definitions and they can't be included in the definition until SOMEONE has been infected.

Answer 2

Not to be a naysayer, but I think both have become bloatware. Of the two I prefer Norton, I've found that McAfee causes instability and significantly degrades performance. I have to admit my opinion is several years old as I stopped using it after experiencing these issues.

I do think Norton's anti-virus is pretty good and like their auto-update functionality.

I currently use a free for home-use German software called anti-vir, you can get it at http://www.free-av.com.

I have also had good experience with AVG anti-virus and heard good things about Avast, though have not used Avast.

From a firewall perspective, I think ZoneAlarm is head and shoulders above the rest, though as things have changed I believe I would now purchase the Pro version rather than using the free version. I actually still use the paid-for version 1 that I bought and it seems good enough. Since they sell a "combo" package I might consider buying that soon.

It's worth doing some research and testing some of these products out, especially if you have an extra machine.

Good luck.

Answer 3

2

Answer 4

deffinently norton..

it has the fastest security response,and thats what you need and what matters with an antiVirus software.

i think it is a serious antiVirus software,that will protect you when a brand new virus is spreading.

of course,you should have a high-end configuration to your pc when you get norton softwares.

dont forget that norton is the most popular,trusted and powerful corporation in the world,with Mcafee second.

Answer 5

McAfee has never done me wrong. It's what I've always had and will keep. Even if a virus does manage to get through. None are 100%. You will always have people who curse Norton or curse McAfee or both. It's a matter of personal preference. They're both good.

Answer 6

I'd have to say McAfee. Why? I've used both. McAfee is so thorough and very much on the job of catching viruses and eliminating them. McAfee makes it a lot easier to understand. I've been upset with them at times, but all in all if I were to rate them on a scale of 1 to 10 I'd give them a ten. Norton just makes things to complicated and just doesn't have everything McAffee to offer.

Answer 7

Well I'd choose McAfee but I myself use Panda. The link I provide shows why no one should be using Norton.

Answer 8

Norton Because Its A Name Brand.

Answer 9

Myself and for my customers I choose McAfee. I like the easy managability. Very user friendly. I agree wth the other guy when he said you should no skimp on the antivirius and go with the big names like McAfee and Norton. You will for yourself need to compare and decide.

Good Luck

Answer 10

McAfee