News Room Contributor  Posts: 6902 Joined: 12 Nov 2002     | |
IT Director  Posts: 1378 Joined: 13 Jun 2002   | Like all gaming editions of everything, they also appear to have added a really shitty eXXtreme! skin. Nothing says "I'm hip with today's youth" like making your product look like a WinAmp skin hosted on deviantart. Personally, I'd love to see the 'suck less' part rolled into their corporate versions as well. |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 3658 Joined: 7 Mar 2008     | are they actually going to detect virii and malware like every other good scanner does? symantec has a bad habit of labeling things as "trojans" and not virii so they don't have to bother cleaning it up AND on top of that you gotta pay for it annually this version actually sounds useful but some of it could be solved easily by a simple thing as a scheduler |
News Room Contributor Posts: 6902 Joined: 12 Nov 2002 | Check the promotional video on the website. Hip and edgy and ironic and all the things that corporate focus groups have determined that gamers love, yet I found it vaguely insulting. Like we're too stupid to appreciate the benefits of unobtrusive virus protection without having it wrapped in some kind of post-comedy bullshit. Just kind of rubbed me the wrong way. |
Press Junketeer  Posts: 414 Joined: 18 Feb 2008     | So they made Norton less of a resource hog? Great! Now they can work on making it a functioning product capable of competing with the free anti-virus software! Such as AVG! |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 2408 Joined: 29 Nov 2007   | Norton Anti-virus is worse than the damned viruses it's supposedly stopping. I feel like I'm in the 'The Sopranos' every time that stupid box chimes up telling me to cough up protection money. Oh sure, they leave you alone as soon as you pay up, but after that it's 'Where's the cash? Where's the cash?' |
Beat Writer  Posts: 188 Joined: 15 Jun 2008    | Stupid. They could've simply made a better version that appealed to everyone. What's the point? |
Infamous Scribbler  Posts: 535 Joined: 7 Jun 2008   | Yes, this is called "BitDefender" and it does it automatically when you start a game. Oh, wait, sorry Symantec, that's a different company. |
Muckraker  Posts: 336 Joined: 12 Oct 2007  |
Exactly. I haven't used Norton since 2002 ever since I found BitDefender. |
Muckraker  Posts: 311 Joined: 28 Sep 2008  | Hmm , might as well get this version of Norton instead of the normal when my trial expires . I don't know what everyone is complaining about. I haven't had any problems with Norton , maybe it's because I'm careful and don't get viruses in the first place.. |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 2495 Joined: 18 Sep 2007   |
I dumped Norton AV because it badly slowed down my ultaportable laptop... NAV is notorious for hogging RAM and CPU cycles and can be a serious performance drag. It also used to be notoriously difficult to uninstall (the "Godfather" syndrome; every time you get out, they drag you back in with another damned process Symantec's uninstaller didn't delete) but that, at least, has gotten better. I went with OneCare on the recommendation of some folks I know online, as it suits my general "I don't care, just make it work" attitude regarding hardware and OS stuff. It ended up being cheaper, too, because I only needed the one license for both my laptop and my desktop.) -- Steve |
Press Junketeer  Posts: 421 Joined: 23 Nov 2008     | I have conspiracy theory that virus-protection software companies make the viruses, and update the viruses to get around their program, so that the user has to keep paying money to upgrade against the new threat. Edit: I just format my HDs once a month. Keeps it clean. |
Copy Clerk  Posts: 70 Joined: 15 Jul 2008  | Closer, but still not the AV product I want. What I want is a AV program with NO RESIDENT PROGRAM - at all! No background processes. None. It should only run when I boot it. I can update myself, thankyouverymuch. No, I don't need the other bloatware, either - I've got my own spyware and adware software, I don't want yours. Yes, I'm aware an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. However, I backup what data I consider precious onto flash drives, so on the rare chance my comp contracts a killer virus, I can scrub the disk and reinstall. I also agree about Norton being notorious begware. Sorry, not going to cough up cash every year for you. AV's really don't amount to much besides drains on one's pocketbook - firewall's prevent 99% of all the nastiness out there anyway. So, nice try, Norton, but you're still not getting this gamer's money. |
Beat Writer  Posts: 203 Joined: 29 Dec 2007   | Norton products SUCKS. Pure and simple. Way too resource hungry and does not do the job that is it is supposed to do. 99% if the time it causes even MORE problems then the virus' themselves. heck...May as well just call Norton itself a virus. At least that would be close to the truth. AVG all the way. |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 2404 Joined: 20 Aug 2008   | I understand the theory behind this, but the audience they're going for here is exactly the kind of audience that's computer-savvy enough to know that Symantec offers the worst* anti-virus suite on the market and they charge out the ass for it besides. I wonder if they're really trying to market to the sorts of people who can't think of a gift for the PC gamer in their lives (because the gamer's already got all the Q4 releases that matter---no gamer worth his broadband connection would wait all the way to the end of December to play Lich King or Fallout 3) and will be snookered into thinking "he doesn't have a good anti-virus program..." It's the same method I once suggested back in the mid-'80s to a friend of mine named Geoff Von Holten, that he form a band with his last name and sucker moms into buying albums for their Van Halen-loving kids. Who wouldn't buy "5440" by Von Holten? Anyway, I've got a good firewall and Trend Micro's antivirus and that's all I need. *debatable; McAfee is also an acceptable answer approved by the Ohio State Board of Elections. |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 2862 Joined: 23 Oct 2007 | The fact remains that if I were allowed to game on Linux, this would all be a null discussion - while Linux isn't impenetrable to viruses, it's a hell of a lot more difficult to code them for it. Allow me to demonstrate:
Yeah. I think that says it all, doesn't it? |
Paperboy  Posts: 17 Joined: 5 Mar 2008   |
Post-comedy? Really? |
Pulitzer Laureate  Posts: 948 Joined: 10 Sep 2008  | I would have thought that many gamers are tech savvy and therefore uninterested in products such as norton. I use only the most basic of scans and am more than capable of removing any trojan, virus or spyware thats imbedded itself into my system, as are most gamers I know. Windows security is competent enough to pick up the most malicious bugs around, not to mention all the free third party programs (for people with gigabyte motherboards kapersky is a good utility), and even without any form of protection surely most people know how to avoid the majority of virus's/bugs. (use firefox, do not run .exe files people send etc). I truly cannot see how the AV industry is so big 0.0 |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 1542 Joined: 11 Jul 2008  | Gotta admit I do pay for an antivirus, NOD32, as I got it for my mother's PC as she needed something that wasn't going to slow her PC down like I'd just installed Vista onto a 386, like Norton, and wasn't gonna keep popping up windows asking 'should I allow this?' which would have her calling me. NOD32 may cost a little, but it installs and then leaves you the hell alone until 11 months later when it gives you a nudge to renew. When this happened I took up the cheap renew offer and added a licence for myself. Sure it's a 100% more expensive than a free one, but call me a sucker for marketing, I still feel safer paying for one than using a free one, and at least NOD has a stain free record and doesn't screw with my PC. |
Muckraker  Posts: 340 Joined: 25 Feb 2008   |
does that mean it still has the same works until something goes wrong technique? |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 3664 Joined: 21 Jan 2008   | I hate Norton, and will not be buying another product of theirs as long as I live. Now, I'm wondering, which virus protection would be better: AVG or BitDefender? |
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Symantec Releases Norton 2009 Gaming Edition
Symantec has released Norton AntiVirus 2009 Gaming Edition, a special version of its famous security software "that won't slow you down!"
The new Gaming Edition of Norton AntiVirus looks a lot like the old regular edition of Norton AntiVirus, but with the addition of a "gamer mode" meant to keep the software from interfering with gameplay. The program will automatically suspend updates, alerts and other background antivirus applications when the system is running in full-screen mode, all of which can also be easily toggled on and off manually, and will only perform "resource intensive" activities when the computer is idle. Even when running, the software draws minimal resources, requiring less than six megabytes of RAM and adding less than one second to boot time.
"Gamers are an extremely demanding audience that simply won't tolerate anything on their system that detracts from gameplay," said Symantec Senior Vice President Rowan Trollope. "Norton AntiVirus Gaming Edition keeps gamers protected online and runs perfectly undetected in the background, meaning no interruptions, no pop-ups, and with the same award winning zero-impact performance of our 2009 products."
It's great news, really, because this sounds like a big step forward in making antivirus software transparent and non-intrusive, just as it should be. One question, though: Why do we need a Gaming Edition? Wouldn't it be easier to just work this stuff into the standard 2009 release? It's not like they're inventing The Wheel 2.0 here; they're just making Norton AntiVirus suck less, which, while commendable, doesn't strike me as warranting a special stand-alone release. In fact, since both the standard Norton AntiVirus and the new Gaming Edition carry the same price tag, and according to Symantec they're absolutely identical except for the addition of the "gamer mode" stuff in the Gaming Edition (seriously, check it out here), is there any reason at all to stick with the original?
Symantec's Norton AntiVirus 2009 Gaming Edition (and the standard edition) are available via the Symantec Store for $39.99. To learn more, check out the Norton AntiVirus Gaming Edition website.
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