I've been using and paying for Norton for the past two years. I always stick up for Norton whenever somebody talks trash on it, because it has always been very reliable to me. However, recently my computer got infected with a virus, and Norton's performance came under serious question to me. I'm on a Vista 64-bit U OS. Here's the story:
Last week, I downloaded a package of free chess software programs. I was unaware that Trojan.ADH.2 was slipped into the package as well, masked as one of the chess program exes. Norton is always auto-loaded on my computer, but upon realizing something had gone afoul when I clicked on the trojan exe, I looked down and noticed Norton was not active on my bar. That was the first time in two years I had not seen Norton loaded on the task bar. Maybe the virus managed to disable it, but who knows...
Anyway, I immediately unplug the internet cable to stop the virus from loading in more popups. I then have Norton do a complete scan of my system. After about 4 hours, Norton reports 6 infected files and promptly removes them (some were in my hidden appdata folder). I reboot and do a 2nd full scan, and this time Norton reports zero problems. Okay, so I'm thinking everything is fine now since I'm using the very latest updated version of Norton.
I then discover my Firefox browser no longer works. Obviously the virus had taken control of it and corrupted some of the files pertaining to it. So I reinstall Firefox and that fixes the problem. I then start getting random uncontrolled startups of IE 9 that immediately load a bunch of ads. It becomes so intrusive as to happen while I'm in other programs like Warcraft, and it will minimize my programs to bring the IE 9 spam up on my screen. Great, so I'm thinking somehow I've got more viruses. I do a complete system scan with Norton again, and AGAIN it reports ZERO infections.
Finally, I get fed up and download Malwarebytes. I have it do a full system scan, to which it finds 16 various trojans and other corruptions, half of which are in various windows system folders, and the other half are bogus registry changes made by the viruses. Keep in mind I have the latest definitions for both Norton and Malwarebytes, yet Norton completely failed to detect any of these 16 infections that Malwarebytes did.
My system is now virus free not thanks to Norton (which I PAY FOR), but thanks to Malwarebytes, a FREE program. This is inexcusable. I expect the program that I have to pay money to every year would AT LEAST have as comprehensive a virus scan as Malwarebytes does, especially considering Malwarebytes is free to use as a scanner.