Please review the sections regarding Norton / Avast folks. Also take into account customer needs will always vary with their specific needs in mind. And also note, that, this is an independent review which does not indicate my personal opinion on the subject matter. This posting is informational in nature and for those who surf the forums to review.
Reposted from the online article below: Note: customers have been telling Norton this at least for the 7 years I have donated time here assisting.
Norton is one of the most well-known antivirus software brands out there. It may even be the most famous, with millions of people purchasing its services yearly, relying on them to protect sensitive information for over 2 decades. The most misleading loophole in Norton’s offerings is that it does not include real-time protection, ultimately defeating the entire point. You also shouldn’t notice that antivirus software is running at all, but Norton makes its presence known.
And Avast as well got reviewed: Note the similarities and they are owned by Norton / Gen Digital as well.
Avast is another company that managed to do exactly what a security company should never even think of — sell their customers’ data to a third party. One simple action completely tarnished the brand’s reputation forever. Before then, though, Avast would show extremely threatening popups to its users. Antivirus software is meant to protect users, not scare them.
Your specific needs, opinions and mileage will always vary!!
Agreed the author provides no technical data to backup his thoughts. Keep in mind, the article posted, is informational and an opinion of another cloth per-se.
Conversely!! If you read across the forums, there are many cases where "real-time" protection is questionable. Aka, browsers specifically. An example: Just yesterday, my house mate had an incident on Edge where, she opened her Norton password manager, went to a KNOWN good banking login and was greeted with a "computer is locked call this 800 number scenario popup". Checking the login there were zero typos in the saved login. I cleared it, cleared all the temp / cache files and rebooted which took care of it but the question still begs. A login used almost on a daily basis presenting that trash? And, neither Edge nor Norton stopped it. I rest the case of "over-reach" on that finding my side. Most users won't know what to actually do in many cases while expecting their A/V to prevent non-sense from appearing in the first place which in turn, they may actually click or call and the rest as we all know is history.
Norton core OS protection is good as it gets, even there, with all the bloat in N360 its more confusing than helpful. Its gone from adequate and understandable to the every day user to over the top frustration / confusion. I have one device with it installed and won't renew when it expires in a few days. Norton Security works far greater for my needs and doesn't populate all the bogus nonsense as N360 users are pounded with.
Avast, which is totally owned by Norton, has a reputation issue with their selling of user data to third parties. I still find Avast folders on my NS Ultra installs that reappear after removing them when the next Norton update installs. In that folder is a json file which collects data about my machine, its hardware and Norton products installed and not installed. It checks for both. I find that intrusive no matter the reason nor rhyme. Thanks for posting Lmacri.
I stopped using Norton products a few years after the Symantec enterprise division was sold to Broadcom in 2019 because I got tired of NortonLifeLock's questionable billing practices, unnecessary feature bloat (does anyone remember Norton Crypto, may it R.I.P ) and constant spamming that tried to scare me into purchasing unwanted services. However, the statement in that MSN article that "The most misleading loophole in Norton’s offerings is that it does not include real-time protection, ultimately defeating the entire point" sounds like overreach, especially when the author has not provided any evidence to support that claim.
They've singled out Norton as the only antivirus product that does not include real-time protection. If that is true then wouldn't that be reflected in the scores that Norton achieves for real-time protection from comparative testing companies like AV-TEST.org and AV-Comparatives.org ?
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Inspiron 5584 * 64-bit Win 10 Pro v22H2 build 19045.4170 * Firefox v123.0.1 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.24020.7-1.1.24020.9 * Malwarebytes Premium v4.6.10.316-1.0.2286 * Macrium Reflect Free v8.0.7783
) and constant spamming that tried to scare me into purchasing unwanted services. However, the statement in that MSN article that "The most misleading loophole in Norton’s offerings is that it does not include real-time protection, ultimately defeating the entire point" sounds like overreach, especially when the author has not provided any evidence to support that claim.