Since you're asking for opinions, mine is that any version of Norton newer than 2003 is a resource hog. 2003 is even fairly resource-intensive but nothing like the newer versions. Not too long ago I stopped using 2003 in favore of AVG as it seems that the free alternatives are now very reliable.

I've been reading PCMagazine for quite a while now (haven't read February's issue yet, though) and am not surprised that they would rate Norton high. I doubt they consider factors such as resource usage - they likely rate the product on how well it does what it claims to do (i.e. stop viruses) rather than focusing on other factors. They probably have a top-end system that was used for testing and in their testing environment I doubt they even noticed the resource usage.

I think PCMagazine is more of a magazine for the masses, rather than 'power users'.

When PC Mag reviews products, one of the criteria it uses is the amount of ad space purchased by the company. More ads = more money for PC Mag = better reviews.

I read about Norton 360 getting editor's choice, and the very next morning a customer asks me "so what antivirus should I put on my computer", and I say "I was just reading how Norton 360 got editor's choice in the latest PC Magazine, so that'd be good", then I came home and read USER reviews, and I promptly called him back and told him "according to end-user reviews, it's not so great after all, let me get back to you..."

Sigh, looks like none of them are great according to the reviews I've been reading

jayK said:When PC Mag reviews products, one of the criteria it uses is the amount of ad space purchased by the company. More ads = more money for PC Mag = better reviews.

I couldn't agree with you more, which is why I asked, "Did PC Mag favor the big name"

Personally I feel that ESET and Outpost should have been a little bit higher. Especially reading about all the positives that they say about Outpost, but it gets slammed for asking too many questions.

ChinaRider said:You state this as if you are confident in the fact that it's true. Is this your opinion, or do you have proof that their reviews are impacted by ad revenue?I don't have proof, but I'd say wave after wave of crappy heavily-advertised software with glowing PCMag reviews makes for a pretty compelling argument.

One of the main problems with PC Mag is they rated Norton Internet Security 2008 's firewall at the top when right here it comes in very poor,and matousec rates the free ones too not just the paid ones that can afford big advertising bills

FrugalFreak said:I'm actually suprised ZA scored that high, usually ZA gets left out of comparative tests and reviews. the site av-comparative.org doesn't even mention ZAlarm. One can't go by them if they don't compare ALL suites. I am using ZA and have for awhile, the other I used to use was CA ez trust which seemed to consist of similar engines. What are Y'alls opinion of ZA 7.1? only downside about 7.1 I've noticed is the vista version omits cache cleaner, pop up blocks, privacy settings, IMessengers protection.

They may not of done Zone Alarm if ZA decieded not to take part. Not every company takes part in the testing.

MajorDarkside said:Haven't seen Norton 360 and have been done with Norton protection products since about Norton IS 2004 or so which is when the super bloat started happening.

Most of the bloating happens on startup. With no programs in the startup folder, and the minimum used in msconfig you can grab a sandwich and a cup of coffee before Norton gives you permission to use your computer. It has that foggy feel to it where you think that it's done loading up, you try opening up an application and sure enough the hard drive goes into a frenzy and yet more waiting.

After a couple of days of surfing I still get the same amount of minimal spyware (if any) that I would get with ESET or Outpost anyway.

Another pain with Norton is if you subscribe to them (even if you are not signed for automatic billing) you will still see an annual charge pop up on your credit card. This happened to a friend of mine who called up Symantec and the CSR admitted that it was a glitch of their end, but yet he would have been charged if he didn't catch that.

As stated before, I LOVED using Norton in the past!!! There was a time that Norton would be my first and only option, but the last few years it just has the "Vista" effect with me of why bother using it when others can get the job done on a more efficient manner.

Quite frankly I wouldn't give Norton 360 anything higher out of a 2.5/5.0, (unless my paycheck was riding on it as well)

bravebiffy said:I installed ZA 7.1 on one of my laptops a few months back and boy, did I regret it. It practically reduce my DL speed by 30% (and sometimes more). I don't DL much and I only found out the lagging after trying to download a freeware game. After reading the manual and changing some settings, the speed improved somewhat, but it wasn't like before. Hence, I now only use Comodo.

Is ZA 7.1 really that bad?

I got up to ZA 5 before making a switch to KIS for a while. Personally I liked ZA 5 but I switched with a FAR offer a while back instead of upgrading.