 Norton Antivirus, developed and distributed by Symantec Corporation, provides malware prevention and removal during a subscription period. It uses signatures and heuristics to identify viruses. Other features include spam filtering and phishing protection.  Symantec distributes the product as a download, a box copy, and as OEM software. Norton Antivirus and Norton Internet Security, a related product, held a 61% US retail market share for security suites as of the first half of Competitors, in terms of market share in this study, include antivirus products from CA, Trend Micro, and Kaspersky Lab.[1]  Norton Antivirus runs on Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. Windows 7 support is in development for versions 2006 through Version 2009 has Windows 7 supported update already. Versions 2010, 2011, and 2012 all natively support Windows 7, without needing an update. Version 12 is the only version fully compatible with Mac OS X Lion.

 Norton's fast installation and comprehensive feature set would be useless without solid performance, and Norton Internet Security 2012 delivers extremely high third-party efficacy benchmarks and strong performance benchmarks.  In a real-world test, Norton 2012 completed a Quick Scan in 2 minutes, 43 seconds; the Full Scan took 1 hour 43 minutes and 54 seconds. While the Full Scan average is comparable to last year's, the Quick Scan was approximately 1 minute and 30 seconds slower than last year's average.  Read more: Norton AntiVirus CNET Download.com _ html#ixzz267JV0U _ html#ixzz267JV0U00

 Demanding on Resources Prior to the 2009 version of Norton Antivirus, critics such as Top Ten Reviews claimed that the software required considerable memory to function. This slowed down the overall performance of the computer and negated some of the positive effects of the program. While Norton made a point to correct this issue in the 2010 version, computers that have an old copy installed might experience resource issues.  Cost As of September 2010, Norton Antivirus 2011 sells for $ While not the most expensive virus protection program, consumers may opt for a free alternative. With free programs like Microsoft Security Essentials and AVG Free receiving comparable ratings, you should decide whether the features of Norton are truly worth the extra cash.

 Slow First Scan Although not reported in every version, the 2012 Norton Antivirus application occasionally experiences slowness issues when running the initial malware scan on a system. Users must run a scan of the computer after first installing the software. This process occasionally takes an extended period of time. Depending on the overall ability of your computer, you might not be able to use other programs while Norton makes its first scan of your hard drive.  Technical Support Issues When installing the program on a system already infected with malware, various issues may arise. While Norton technical support suggests a fix by purchasing a separate program, alternate solutions are available that won't cost you a pretty penny. This misguided tech support suggestion was noted on PC Magazine's review of Norton Antivirus

 Norton AntiVirus 2012 contains only core security features. All the useful extras you'll have to upgrade to Norton Internet Security to get. In that respect, NAV is much too similar to the free security suites out there, and unless support or the slightly better protection is a major priority for you, we recommend one of those instead.  Read more: Norton Antivirus CNET Download.com html#ixzz267HjsZSu html#ixzz267HjsZSu

 I do not recommend this product since there are better alternatives, and well worth the extra money. We had been using Avast prior to Norton, but switched to save some money. I hope to move back to Avast once our keys expire with Norton.  The product is simple and cheap, and is a some what effective antivirus tool. With that said, it can be a hassle to get it installed, and don't expect too much out of customer support html