2013 Antivirus Software Reviews

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Norton Internet Security 2013 Overall Score: 89%

Norton Internet Security offers the same virus protection as Norton Antivirus plus extra security.

Norton has improved previous weaknesses in protection and speed and now offers a highly competitive product that performs very well at virus removal and protection.

They still have room for improvement. Technical support is hard to find and not very useful.

The user interface looks great, but feels a bit disconnected and is confusing at times.

It is definitely a well-known brand and one we recommend.

Certified by:

• VB Bulletin
• AV Comparatives
• Anti-Malware Test Lab
• PC Security Labs
• AV-Test

Norton's level of excellence is now generally on par with its competitors.

It's strong on phishing and real-time virus protection, its software firewall, and spyware blocking.

However, we were concerned that even though Norton lists the newest malicious websites they've discovered on their website, but when we checked those sites on our systems, about 25% went unblocked. Their website is ahead of their software.

Overall, though, their protection is strong. Resource was average at best. During a full-system, manual scan, we saw 54% CPU usage and about 73% memory usage.

System usage has improved in recent years. When idle, usage was average at 1% CPU and 54% memory.

Especially improved was manual scanning speed. We calculate about a 20% improvement from a couple of years ago.
Norton's user interface is modern and very easy to use, but perhaps a bit disconnected.

Some pages didn't match and we found the sheer number of buttons and pages overwhelming.

In addition, Norton has created new names for some of their technology that we didn't find immediately self-explanatory.
Technical support is not a strong suit for Norton.

Upon clicking the "Support" button in the software, your PC is scanned to gather data for Norton's support engineers. This is helpful, but in our test, the scan reported that our installation had failed, when it hadn't, and were given instructions to install and reinstall the software. Not helpful.

To find direct support, you are forced to go to their internet site to search for contact information.

Norton offers both free and paid technical support. Free (limited) support comes in the form of forums, chat and FAQ. For full support and virus removal, Norton offer several different levels starting from a one-time "fix" of $4.99 (for tune-up and troubleshooting only — not much a "fix" really), to $19.99/month for actual virus removal.

When we called Norton support, it was very diffucult to get basic and direct answers about their paid support options. It did not give us confidence in their support services.

We'd like to see Norton offer truely free and open support for all levels.

Virus definitions and updates are set to download automatically in three different ways:

Pulse Updates

fast, small critical updates

Automatic Live Updates

full, complete updates

Smart Definitions

vital definition updates only

This is good for those with slower internet speeds that need to maximize bandwidth. Norton ISS offers several excellent extra features, but one that we found not terribly useful.

Norton's Parental Controls, Safety Minder, is a separate, optional, free and useful software available directly from their website. It provides a safe search feature and monitors websites for unsafe features.

Safe Web scans your Facebook news feed for dangerous links, infected downloads and unsafe websites.

Norton Internet Security 2013 is a great product.

It's virus and malware protection and firewall software are all top notch.

They have fixed previous issues with size, speed and usability.

However, we'd also like to also see improvement in technical support. Free and comprehensive support is becoming common, but even their paid support is difficult to find.

Norton has come a long way and we appreciate their efforts. We definitely recommend this product.