Product comparison avast!

vs Norton

Norton Internet avast! Internet avast! Pro

Product information Security Security Norton AntiVirus Antivirus
avast! installation and operation files average a 30-45% smaller hard-disc footprint than Norton Number of program languages 25 34 25 34
files, despite supporting more languages and offering comparable – and in several cases much Size of the installation package 99,1 MB 54,8 MB 91,8 MB 50,5 MB
faster – scan and detection speeds. With better performance and much less demand on system Program size after installation 225 MB 160 MB 202 MB 135 MB
resources, avast! users benefit not only themselves but also the whole environment – through
greener computing.

Aside from the comparisons demonstrated, avast! offers the same protection value for a 1-year price & Number of licenses $69.99 - up to 3 PCs $59.95 - up to 3 PCs $ 39,99 $39.95
smaller investment.

Product features
Norton features, extracted from the Symantec website, are listed below and compared with avast! product features.
1) Whereas Norton offers pulse updates every 5-15 minutes, avast! performs them only 2-3 times per day – even with fewer updates per day, avast! delivers greater accuracy and far better detection.
2) Rather than include an inferior recovery disc with its antivirus programs, avast! offers a BART (Bootable Antivirus and Recovery Tool) CD as a separate product, of which Neil Rubenking, Lead Analyst for PC Magazine, writes: “Only
avast!'s BART CD can remove malware traces in the "foreign" registry [...] The true virus warrior who’s working hard to clean up other people’s drives[...] should go with avast!’s BART CD."
3) avast! doesn't offer parental controls’, however a quick internet search reveals endless problems with such an endeavor, and avast! prefers offering fully functional antivirus software to our users.
4) Now that more than 80% of viruses are spread via websites (and no longer primarily through emails), website blocking is essential not just for Internet Security suites, but as well for standard antivirus programs.
avast! Pro Antivirus offers this essential level of protection, whereas Norton Antivirus does not.

Norton Product feature (Comparable avast! feature shown in brackets)

Blocks viruses, spyware, Trojan horses, worms, bots, and rootkits    
Defends against hackers with a quiet two-way firewall   x x
Pulse updates every 5 to 15 minutes or faster - (1)  *1  *1
Intelligence-driven technology for faster, fewer, shorter scans (avast! Persistent cache)    
Norton Bootable Recovery Tool repairs, restores and boots severely infected, unbootable PCs - (2)  *2  *2
Leverages cloud-based online intelligence for real-time detection of threats (avast! CommunityIQ)    
Download Insight proactively warns of potential dangers in newly downloaded files before installation (avast! Web shield)    
Guards against Web attacks that exploit software vulnerabilities (avast! Behaviour shield)    
Blocks browser, OS, and application threats; protects against infected Web sites    
Protects against the latest threats with proactive multilayered protection system (avast! Multilayered protection)    
Stops threats unrecognized by traditional antivirus techniques (avast! CommunityIQ + Behavioral Shield + Heuristics engine)    
Filters unwanted email with professional-strength antispam   x x
Helps keep your kids safe online with parental controls - (3)  *3 x x
Automatically secures your PC when connecting to public wireless networks   x x
Block hackers from accessing your computer   x x
Blocks phishing websites and authenticates trusted sites (avast! IS blocks phishing through antispam) - (4)   x 4
Product performance - avast! outperforms Norton in detection

The latest independent Comparative Review performed by Virus Bulletin (VB100), compared the latest versions of major security brands, based on the Vista OS (SP2). As you can see from the graphs below, avast! FREE Antivirus has
better detection rate than Norton.
Notably, the most important avast! performance is in terms of both Reactive and Proactive detection. Reactive detection measures the ability of the security solution to react quickly to the new viruses and add them to the virus-
signature database. The applications are scanning a sample set that is one week old. avast! significantly outperforms Norton, in part by benefiting from its huge free user base, which channels new samples of viruses to the avast!
Virus Lab as part of the avast! CommunityIQ design. This is something none of the traditional brands could replicate.
Nevertheless, the strength of avast! antivirus software goes far beyond its ability to get fast samples of new viruses. The Proactive detection evaluates the heuristic and behavioral detection WITHOUT the help of signatures, by
looking at the antivirus ability to detect new virus samples while not having them in the signature database. Basically, the scanning is done on latest viruses but the applications are not allowed to update for one week. As you can see,
avast! FREE Antivirus again outperforms Norton.

Reactive and Proactive (RAP) detection scores VB100 Comparative review

Detection percentage

100%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Malware and detection types

90%
In the Wild
80%
Worms & Bots
70%
Polymorphs
60%
Norton antivirus 2010 Trojans avast! Free
50%
avast! Free Norton antivirus 2010
40%

30% Reactive detection +1 week

20% Proactive detection -1 week

10%

0%
Reactive Proactive Overall
False positive 0%

The results clearly show that avast! has a faster, more accurate response in adding samples to the virus database; this equates to less updates, but of higher quality.
In addition to typical virus-gathering methods, avast! has over 120 million users, of which a vast majority participate in the avast! Community IQ, a unique source of data whereby customers contribute samples directly to the avast!
virus lab.

You can see avast! matches the Norton's features and excels in performance, size, language, and price.