Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq:SYMC) today announced it is partnering with Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq:MSFT) to provide a free, fully functional trial version of Norton AntiVirus 2000 to help small and mid-sized businesses prepare for Year 2000-related viruses, hoaxes, and other malicious code.

Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq:SYMC) today announced an agreement with Tele Danmark, Denmark's largest Internet Service Provider (ISP), to protect subscribers of its Opasia Internet service from virus attack. Under the agreement, Opasia customers will be protected by Norton AntiVirus 2000 as part of their subscription. In addition, Opasia customers will also receive free virus updates through Symantec's LiveUpdate.

Symantec Corp. announced that current subscribers of both Norton Internet Security and Norton AntiVirus are eligible for a ground-breaking technology update. Leveraging technology from the WholeSecurity, Inc. acquisition, Symantec Online Network for Advanced Response (SONAR) will significantly enhance malware detection and protect Norton Internet Security and Norton AntiVirus users from today's increasingly volatile and unpredictable online threat landscape.

Maker foreign exchange dealing software was the first to trade the euro electronically in real-time over the Internet. Symantec is offering Tivoli customers a free upgrade to the newly-released Norton AntiVirus Plus for Tivoli Enterprise and Norton AntiVirus Plus for Tivoli IT Director via the Platinum Support web page or on Symantec's Norton AntiVirus Solutions CD 3.03.

Norton Internet Security Family Edition offers a comprehensive desktop firewall solution together with Norton AntiVirus protection, Norton Parental Control and Norton Privacy Control to prevent personal data from being sent over the web without the user's knowledge. The Ad Blocking component removes online banner advertising for faster download speeds.

The inclusion of Symantec's Norton Internet Security 2003 product will provide home broadband users in the UK with improved security when they are online together with protection from viruses, hackers and other malicious code. Other features of the security software include a Norton Parental Control application for blocking a child's access to inappropriate web sites or newsgroups and Norton AntiVirus for protecting against worms and viruses.

Existing Norton AntiVirus users benefit immediately from Linux-based virus protection by using the product's LiveUpdate feature. LiveUpdate provides a simple way to keep users protected by automatically connecting to a Symantec server to download the latest virus definitions and software updates. In this case, LiveUpdate interacts with Symantec's modular core anti-virus engine, NAVEX to create the Linux modification. NAVEX is an advanced technology designed to provide customers with compact, easy-to-distribute, easy-to-install updates to the Norton AntiVirus scanning engine.

Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq:SYMC) today announced Nextra, a subsidiary of the Norwegian telecommunications group TeleNor, has chose Symantec to protect its Internet customers. This on-going agreement includes the initial purchase of 75,000 licenses of Norton AntiVirus and Norton Internet Security. Both titles will be distributed to new subscribers on their start-up CD-ROM. Existing customers will have access to a downloadable version of Norton AntiVirus and Norton Internet Security at the Nextra Web site (www.online.no). Both the CD-ROM and the downloads are free of charge.

This agreement with Nextra gives us access to more than 50 percent of the Norwegian Internet market," said Dieter Giesbrecht, senior vice president for Worldwide Sales and Marketing at Symantec. "Threats to Internet security can happen anywhere in the world. Symantec is committed to making sure that no matter where our customers are, they have the best protection against any kind of malicious attack."

In reply to Mr G.Braint's letter last week, don't use McAfee (or Norton) anti-virus software. Use anti-virus software obtainable from www.avast.com, which is free for a single, stand-alone home computer. The virus database is updated automatically when you go online - this happens almost daily. You can also update the software, as and when necessary, free online.