Before I start: I DO NOT want this topic to turn into one big anti-Norton campaign, so if you're here to do just that, then don't bother posting. This topic is not about whether or not you like Norton.

Anyway, moan over, I was on AV-Test.org today. I'd only just found it and was interested to know the actual statistics behind all these anti-virus products.

To cut a long story short, I ended up comparing some popular free anti-viruses (AVG, Avast!, Avira) with the infamous Norton. Here is the graph AV-Test produced. It shows the number of updates per day that were released for each piece of software, going from the start of 2008:



What on earth? Norton releases an average number of updates per day of almost 250?

I have never used Norton myself but this seems far too excessive. What about people on limited bandwidth? When 250 updates are being released each day, you start to wonder exactly what they put in these updates. We live in a virus-plagued world, but there aren't that many! This just seems like poor updating on Norton's part.

So what do you lot think?

P.S. At first I wondered whether AV-Test.org had just got the results wrong. But no, going to Norton's Performance Checker verifies the results: Norton boast a ridiculous 238 updates per day. You can also check the results from AV-Test.org by going here.

As I said before, no Norton rants please, for the sake of my sanity!

I'm sure they are packaged together so it's only one or two downloads. I'm more curious as to why the sudden jump in August. It makes me believe there is a mistake somewhere.

I use Norton personally and can tell you it doesn't update that much.

I also use Norton, it doesn't update that much, but I'd say like 60 updates.

A day, week, month?

It did update a lot.One of the reasons I got rid of it.

If you are saying that Norton issues around 60 updates per day (and I assume that's what you're saying), then you really do start to wonder what is in those 60 updates. And what if you can only connect to the internet at specific points in the day - wouldn't Norton pop-up repeatedly saying it couldn't update?

Additionally, if only 60 updates are released per day, then surely Norton's Performance Checker (see link in my first post) is using false advertising as it quotes a number of updates per day that is over 200. Maybe they do issue 200 updates but package them together, but most users will only see the number of packaged updates (~60 apparently) and not the number of updates (apparently over 200), so surely this is false advertising?

As I say, I have never used Norton in my life and I am merely curious as to how Norton handles this amount of updates.

That amount of updates is ridiculous - why do they need to do so many? I used to use Norton but it was really annoying, so I switched. It wasn't 250 though, more like 20! What I don't understand is the fact it rose so much in a month; it had been fine before that, so why did it need to add so many updates?! Why does it even boast it does so? I would find that off-putting due to the time it would take to do all those updates.

I only notice like one a day if that

Where you guys get 20+ is beyond me

That's exactly my point. If people who use Norton claim they get few updates, yet Symantec boasts that they issue over 200 updates a day, then surely that's false advertising?

When they say updates, they probably mean a fix for one particular virus. Since so many variants of viruses and spyware come out, there must be tons of fixes and say it could be possible for 200 updates to be released a day as is apparently quoted by Norton. I suspect other companies just release these fixes as one bundle and consider it as one update.

live update usually grabs packages of several updates, same a small package under 1meg can have a lot of updates bundled in it.

When people say that Norton makes them slow down, I wouldn't doubt that it's because it's constantly downloading updates in the background.

All auto updates bother me, I even had to turn it off in AVG.

*reads the first line of topic*

Ratz...


HAHA, well I'm sure there okay, and its not like Norton is bad, it just that it gets intertwined with your PC which is why you never uninstall it.

I get a Virus update every day, takes like 30 seconds. lol. Avira FTW!