Norton AntiVirus (NAV) remains the world’s most popular anti-virus program -and for good reason. It is the ideal set-and-forget anti-virus protection that is as close to idiot-proof as anyone has yet got. However, it is not the cheapest and some of its competitors, such as PC-cillin now offer more for the money.


NAV does all of the essentials -it scans incoming and outgoing traffic for viruses, including emails and messages on three popular instant messages systems - AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo! Instant Messenger and Windows Messenger. During installation it automatically detects which you have installed and sets up the protection.


Even a complete novice should have no trouble setting up their anti-virus protection. All they have to do is insert the CD, follow the simple onscreen instructions and let it install itself. There are no complex questions to answer, no configuration required, and as soon as you connect to the internet it will start to update itself with the latest anti-virus definitions.


From then on it will search for new definitions every four hours or every time you go online. While the default configuration is designed to provide instant and ongoing protection, you can also tweak it. For example by default Norton will ask you whether you want to delete or quarantine an infected file if it is unable to clean it, but you can configure it to automatically quarantine or delete it without bothering you.


In the tests, NAV caught a high 97.6 percent of all of the nasties that were thrown at it, and only missed a few Trojans and backdoors. That’s quite an impressive feat.

NAV’s interface is simple, well set out and easy to understand and it reminds you when tasks such as a full system scan, subscription renewal or definition update (if you have been away or have not been online) are required. NAV is now more than just an anti-virus program and by default also scans for spyware, adware, hack tools, remote access programs, diallers and joke programs.