ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE NIGHTMARE: NORTON VS. MCAFEE [Product Review]

Online Newsletter, May, 1999

Conclusion

Norton AntiVirus wins hands down! ... McAfee VirusScan loses big time!

An antivirus software program should be a solution - not part of the problem.

Without any doubt, McAfee VirusScan is the -worst- software product this reviewer has encountered in over twenty years. Notably: a poor product with many glitches - and old by the time it reached store shelves requiring an immediate update; poor technical support, including long wait periods of up to one hour; poor server performance and reliability; and inaccurate files posted for downloading.

The Norton AntiVirus manual accompanying the product is well-written, accurate, and concise. It also mentioned what might be encountered using the Rescue Disks for rebooting the system from a floppy, if multi-platforms (i.e. Windows 3.1 -and- Windows 95) were present on the same PC. The manual cited using SETUP for doing this, and indeed this worked well, if you wait for the press DEL (SETUP prompt) to show, then wait for the CTRL prompt ''Boot from Floppy'' to appear and rapidly insert the disk into the A drive and press CTRL. (This may vary on some SETUP programs.)

Norton AntiVirus was so superb and easy-to-use that this reviewer sent Symantec an email telling them that such an excellent product was appreciated. (Tell people when they do a good job!)

One software caveat that should always be expressed is that each PC is often configured quite differently from another. Your own results may differ from that of another user for this reason, but it should not disable your PC in any way. (Antivirus programs -do- alter your autoexec.bat and config.sys files, and some other files, without telling you.)

Interestingly, antiviral software is rated as being the top-selling security software market with revenues that are expected to top $3 billion by 2002.

... But no matter how good the antivirus software you've just installed - updating the product frequently, and keeping a vigilance over safe PC practices will remain ''first things first'' on your order of priorities.

Nice work Norton! [RSH]