While the 2008 edition hasn't been through independent lab testing yet, Norton AntiVirus 2007 got top marks from all the labs. Both ICSA Labs and West Coast Labs certified it for virus detection and cleaning; West Coast Labs also gave it Checkmark certification for detecting spyware and Trojan horses. And you have to go back to 1999 to find any occasion when a Symantec product did not receive the VB100% award from Virus Bulletin. In addition, a very recent test by AV-Comparatives rated Symantec's technology Advanced, the highest rating.
One of my test systems frequently goes into a blue-screen death spiral when security software does an incomplete cleanup job. NIS 2008 had no trouble with that one. I like the fact that Norton's new suite cleans up high-risk items the moment it finds them, rather than asking the user. It asks your permission only when the item is seriously low-risk. A malware sample on another system tries to protect itself from security software by interfering with the Windows Installer. NIS 2007 installed despite this chicanery, but NIS 2008 hit a wall, which was a bit disappointing. Still, on Symantec's advice I ran a Web-based scan and then booted into Safe Mode to delete the files identified by the scan. After that I was able to install the product and complete the cleanup process.
By default, NIS 2008 runs a preinstall scan during the installation process, and you'll definitely want to accept that default. When I installed it on my infested test systems, the pre-install scan detected and at least partially disabled almost three-quarters of the malware samples, including adware, spyware, Trojans, rootkits, and rogue antispyware programs. After a full scan almost every single one of the samples was gone—NIS 2008 scored 9.3 out of a possible 10 points. In the same test Spy Sweeper and Spyware Doctor scored 9.0 and 9.1, respectively; BitDefender rated 8.6 points
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