Sick to death of Norton

[KHarms]

Here at HCA Central we have way too many machines. And we like to keep the virus protections up on them in case, while looking into a problem, we stumble across something bad.

Problem is I have finally had it with Norton. It was killing performance on a number of laptops we own so they were switched to "Microsoft Security Essentials". Seems good.

We have a number of machines on AVG and still some on Norton. It would be nice to get all on the same system.

Anyone have any ideas?

[ewelin]

I too had similar experienced with Norton, but about 2-3 years ago.... I had 5 PCs, 3 of my own, my parents and in-laws all running Norton and 4 of the 5 had major lags. I ended up removing it and the 4 with lags had new life again. At that time I went with AVG and was happy, but every now and then an update fails and found they require a bit more maintance than I liked. When MS released Microsoft Security Essentials I jumped on it to give it a shot... I've been running it since the day it was released to the public and I'm quite happy. Performs just as well as AVG and have yet to have any issues with updates or anything. It just runs and I don't have to think about it. I just updated my wife's laptop and plan to do my parents and in-laws PCs next time I tinker on their systems.

A great site for info on freeware programs is gizmo's freeware and here is their review of the free antivirus programs:
Best Free Antivirus Software (http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-anti-virus-software.htm#Quick_Selection_Guide)

[mjl]

I've also started using Microsoft's Security Essentials and have had no problems with it. Up until now, I've used Microsoft's Defender product on machines which were not powerful enough to run modern A/V software and I even like just Defender a lot - the new Security Essentials product is an extension of the Defender product, so I"m expecting it to be similar.

I get Symantec Endpoint Protection free from my employer so I run that on my main workstation and my wifes computer. Symantec's endpoint protection product seems to be more streamlined and work better than their commercial consumer products. However, it does bog down older systems, and in particular caused many problems on my laptop where I frequently changed Network interface cards and networks - the Home A/V software does not seem to handle variable environments such as mobile computers well. On my laptop, I now use only Microsoft Defender and have not even added the Security Essentials due to the laptop's limited capabilities (1 GHz PIII with 384MB RAM - so it won't run most modern A/V software, or if it does, it won't run anything else).

I also could get McAfee's product free from my ISP but I hate McAfee. I tried it once just to check it out and was successfully compromised the first day I used it - McAfee actually triggered on the attack but then would not allow me to do anything while I watched the attacker steal information - I had to pull the plug and wipe the computer. We use a version of McAfee's enterprise product where I am currently contracted and it's just as bad as the consumer version.

So far I like Microsoft's new product, but for a very old PC, I might still stick with only Defender - it's not really A/V, but it does a decent job of protecting against basic malware. How much protection you really need depends on how the device is used - if you don't frequently load downloaded software, do e-mail, or browse the Internet and the system is not exposed to the Internet, then

I too had similar experienced with Norton, but about 2-3 years ago.... I had 5 PCs, 3 of my own, my parents and in-laws all running Norton and 4 of the 5 had major lags. I ended up removing it and the 4 with lags had new life again. At that time I went with AVG and was happy, but every now and then an update fails and found they require a bit more maintance than I liked. When MS released Microsoft Security Essentials I jumped on it to give it a shot... I've been running it since the day it was released to the public and I'm quite happy. Performs just as well as AVG and have yet to have any issues with updates or anything. It just runs and I don't have to think about it. I just updated my wife's laptop and plan to do my parents and in-laws PCs next time I tinker on their systems.

A great site for info on freeware programs is gizmo's freeware and here is their review of the free antivirus programs:
Best Free Antivirus Software (http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-anti-virus-software.htm#Quick_Selection_Guide)

[MrMagic]

I have used Norton Internet Sucurity for YEARS and have found nothing I like better. Granted, earlier versions were resource hogs, but since V 2009, that has become much less of an issue. I like Norton. Does it catch everything? No, none of them do so whatcha gonna do.

I purchased AVG Pro 8.5 just to test it and because it was the only thing I could get to run on the WIndows 7 RC, and I hated the thing. SOOo clumsy to configure.

Soon as Norton was running on 7, I went immediately back to it and thats where I'm staying.

Steve

[mjl]

My Symantec endpoint protection has some time/date problems at the year-end rollover so I removed it. I used the Microsoft products for a while, but now Comcast provides Norton Security Suite (up to 7 copies but I don't know if they enforce that) for it's residential customers so I put this on all of our workstations including the PC running HCA Server and all of the clients. - the new Norton Security Suite (I think it is similar to Norton 360) is very nice. You have to do a bit of configuring to get it running smoothly, then the only problem I am having is that every time I change the network configuration (just adding or removing an interface such as a virtual netork, VPN or USB network device) Norton then assumes all of the networks are new since windows changes the network names, so Norton assumes it's a public (protected) network until you go in and tell it to trust it again. Other than that, it is a very nice product and does not appear to use many resources at all. It has a feature where you can tell it to trust software you know is good so that it does not constantly scan known good software - this helps a lot.

I've removed the A/V from my windows servers since they are not used for any client activity, and I don't run any A/V on the Linux servers, but I have all of the logs going to a SIEM (log analyzer).

I also ran OSSEC on my devices for a while, however it is currently removed since I am upgrading the Linux server it is hosted on.

I run the beta Norton product on my Android phone (free for 90 days - they don't say how much it will cost after that). Anyone else use anything good for Android anti-malware protection?

[jimcs]

Kim,
I am using mcafee on all 6 of my machines -- it isn't cheap but it seems effective. I have never had a bad file get past it except when I told it to do something I shouldn't have. My home server uses mcafee security as a service-this uses less of my machine that other system and is easy to keep current and the plus is that mcafee sends a weekly report on its effectiveness.

Jim

[mjl]

This is one of those subjective decisions - the answer will be different for each person and each situation. There is no perfect solution. The important thing is that any host which connects to the Internet (especially for web browsing or e-mail) or allows users to log directly onto it has up-to-date protection. We use McAfee at work - it's a resource hog if all of the features are on. I've personally had bad luck with McAfee products allowing infections to pass. I'm back to using Symantec on workstations and netbooks at home (Symantec Norton Security Suite provided by Comcast). The only problem I have is that the "smart" firewall thinks I'm on a new network whenever I change my network adapter, such as if I add bridging or switch from wired to wireless. I configure it to trust everything on my local network and also use the Norton Insight on the HIgh Trust setting and manually tell it to trust apps I know are good - this gets the performance to where I don't notice performance lag on reasonable powered PC's (even on our Atom powered netbooks it works fine). I also think the Microsoft Security Essentials is just fine. I use SuperAntiSpyware on a couple of servers, but not on the windows home servers since you need something especially written for them - since nobody logs onto them directly, I don't put AV directly on the WHS boxes, but I put a syslog agent on them and forward the logs to my log servers for analysis. Filesystems served by the WHS boxes can be scanned remotely from other systems, but I don't have that enabled by default, mostly because in my line of work, I keep stuff in my archives which A/V considers bad and deletes.

I also have my domain hosted by Dyn (Dynamic Network Services, Inc) which provides a DNS proxy service with filtering - redirecting sites (based on policy) to prevent users from accessing undesirable content (http://dyn.com/labs/dyn-internet-guide/). I like this service since I don't have any maintenance other than making sure my DNS servers forward to theirs, it protects every device on the network even if the device has no local A/V, and there is no noticable performance impact. I've tested this servce a few times on known malware sites with new or zero day exploits and they appear to keep it pretty up-to-date. The only trick is if you run an IDS/IPS which requires DNS resolution of the bad sites, then the IDS/IPS must bypass the DNS proxy and forward directly to the Internet (usually your ISP, or google DNS is good)

If I didn't get Symantec for free, I would probably use Microsoft's product on all Microsoft clients and use scan-only versions of other products occassionally for spot-checks. I don't run A/V on any linux servers, however I do collect syslogs from all devices to a linux based syslog server and also a windows based Kiwi Syslog server. The syslogs are great both for detecing infections and also for general troubleshooting. I have no permanent Linux workstations to protect.

I also run a snort based IDS tapping off of hubs on both the outside and inside of my Internet router - the snort box also logs to the syslog which can generate alerts based on the snort events. That's more than the average person would want to deal with, but If your Internet Router provides some sort of IDS/IPS or syslog, sometimes you can configure that to send events to syslog server or to send e-mail alerts.

[Galvinee]

You can try some other anti virus or it's necessary for you?

[Buckee]

Hey i think you have to use Microsoft Security Essentials because it is the best security for your machines.i am also using Microsoft security on my machines and i have no problem with that .