Norman AntiVirus 9 – PC Magazine
Naming your security company "Norman" just has to be a ploy to siphon some of Norton's business, doesn't it? Well, no. Norman was founded in 1984, and Symantec didn't acquire the Norton name until 1990. Norman got there first! Alas, the antivirus protection you get from Norman AntiVirus 9 ($45.95 direct for three licenses) is nowhere near as effective as Norton's AntiVirus.
At first glance, I thought I had installed the wrong product. The program's main window clearly says "Norman SecuritySuite" across its top. Looking more closely, I realized that the window shows one licensed product, the antivirus component, and five "recommended products" available for purchase. Adding the recommended components would turn the antivirus into Norman's full suite.
Tough Install, Tough Follow-through
Getting Norman installed on my twelve malware-infested systems was a challenge. On three systems the installation ran so slowly that I thought the operating system had hung. Installation eventually finished on those three. For some reason the Internet Protection component doesn't install with the rest of the features, so I separately installed that component on each system.
In some cases the registration system rejected my license key, even though it was the same multi-license key every time. I found that I could complete the installation by telling the License Wizard that I already added licenses to the existing key.
On one test system, malware visibly interfered with installation. An error message asked for a reboot to complete the installation, but after rebooting six times I concluded that it really was not going to finish. The Norman installation on another test system seemed to finish, but the product just would not run.
On a recommendation from tech support I ran Norman Malware Cleaner 2.1 (Free, 3.5 stars) on the problem systems. In both cases it reported an error message and wouldn't run, even though in an earlier review it had scanned these very systems. Figuring the only difference was the failed installation of the Norman antivirus, I uninstalled it.
When this didn't help, I went back to tech support to find out my next step. To my great surprise, they responded, "There does not seem to be much else we can do." I can't remember another vendor who simply gave up when the product wouldn't install.
Meanwhile, on some of my other test installations free disk space steadily dwindled to the point where Windows issued a warning. In several cases I freed up space and then later got the low space warning again, as free space continued to diminish. I never did identify precisely what about Norman caused this loss of free space. On a big real-world PC it might well have stabilized and stopped after a while, but on my underpowered virtual machines this loss of space was a significant problem.
Low Lab Scores
Not all of the independent test labs include Norman in their tests, and those that do don't generally give it good marks. ICSA Labs certifies it for malware detection and cleaning, but West Coast Labs doesn't test Norman. It only achieved the VB100 rating in six of the last ten tests by Virus Bulletin. Many of the better products have reached VB100 in all ten of the last ten tests.
AV-Test.org runs periodic antivirus certification tests under Windows 7, Vista, and XP. A product must score at least 11 of 18 possible points for certification. Norman didn't reach that goal in any of the latest three tests; its average score was eight points. For more information about the independent labs and their tests, see How We Interpret Antivirus Lab Tests.
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