Product summary

The good: Norton AntiVirus 2008 provides solid antivirus protection.

The bad: Norton AntiVirus 2008 is roughly six times the size of most competing antivirus applications; doesn't offer three-user license; doesn't support Firefox; doesn't work with recent Yahoo and AOL IM applications (only old versions); offers fee-based services under the guise of technical support.

The bottom line: Norton AntiVirus 2008 didn't wow us this year. While the protection is solid, the user experience could be much, much better, and the product itself could be more streamlined. Also we can do without the addition of paid services in the technical support section.

Conclusion
Although the antivirus protection is similar between Norton AntiVirus and Karspersky, we give the nod to Kaspersky again this year in part because of its superior user experience. Symantec, despite its efforts, still feels heavy, burdened by its own corporate legacy and dependency on other Symantec products. Also, it is not always clear what you are enabling or disabling, clever way to keep users from controlling the application themselves. And finally, watch out for fee-based "premium" help and technical support which once again finds its way back into the product.