Symantec Norton Anti. Virus Basic Review Rating. Symantecs Norton brand is one of the best known in the antivirus realm. Norton Anti. Virus has been around since the early 9. The current edition of Symantec Norton Anti. Virus Basic aced our hands on tests, and, despite the basic in the name, it includes some unusual advanced features. It remains an antivirus Editors Choice. This PC specific product costs 4. Bitdefender, Trend Micro, and Webroot all go for 3. Mc. Afee costs 5. Tech support for Norton Anti. Virus Basic is limited, and you dont get the Virus Protection Promise. Its pretty clear that Symantec would really prefer that you purchase Symantec Norton Security Premium or one of the other suite products. The suites do cost quite a bit more, though, so if you just need to protect one PC, choosing the antivirus makes sense. Multi Stage Install. As with Mc. Afee Anti. Virus Plus and many modern security utilities, the easiest way to install Norton is to go online and register your product key. Doing so gets you a simple choice install on this device, or send an email to install on another device. You download a tiny installer stub which in turn downloads the latest product. KBXeoLIFo/hqdefault.jpg' alt='Should I Norton Power Eraser' title='Should I Norton Power Eraser' />I did find that checking for updates immediately after installation found 1. Protection Updates Current. Theres a bit more to getting the product fully installed. When you launch a browser, Norton prompts you to install not one but four extensions Norton Safe Search, which marks dangerous search results Norton Home Page, which puts Safe Search and a collection of quick links on your home page Norton Toolbar, which rates the pages you visit and includes a search box and Norton Identity Safe, a full scale password manager. Norton makes installing the extensions very simple, with a hand holding wizard that leads you through every step. Once youve set up all your browsers, your installation is complete. At first glance, the products main window seems unchanged since last year, but theres one very handy new feature. Have you ever gotten frustrated flipping through pages of settings and not finding the one you want Now you just click on the search icon and start typing what youre looking for. Youll get a list of matching topics with an explainer panel that pops up when you point to one. You can perform some simple actions, like turning a feature on or off right in the search box. The new Help Center puts a wealth of support resources at your fingertips. You can watch video tutorials, read the manual, and check for new versions. Clicking to get support automatically runs a diagnostic tool that can fix some problems. If it cant, it offers a link to online tech support. Other links let you manage your account, visit the Norton community forums, and more. Scan Selections. With most antivirus tools, you can choose three types of scan. R0Qg8Z.png' alt='Should I Norton Power Eraser' title='Should I Norton Power Eraser' />The full scan, as the name implies, checks everything on your computer. The quick scan focuses on malware in memory and in common malware haunts. For a custom scan, you specify where and how it should check for malware. Norton gives you all three of those, but it doesnt stop there. If you still feel that you have malware even after a regular full scan, you can launch the aggressive Norton Power Eraser tool. Theres a faint possibility this tool could damage legitimate programs, and Norton warns you about this. For maximum malware fighting power, it reboots the system and scans at startup. Should I Norton Power Eraser' title='Should I Norton Power Eraser' />Norton Insight scans your files, checking them against Symantecs monster database of known good files. Trusted files dont need to be scanned theyve already been verified as good. For each file, the Trust Level report lists the level of trust, the number of users among Norton customers and the impact on system resources. If youre having trouble that requires contacting tech support, take a moment first to run the Diagnostic Report scan. It may help you solve the problem on your own. Symantecs very capable Norton Security Deluxe includes a firewall and supports all popular platforms, but its big brother, Symantec Norton Security. MS Paint, the first app you used for editing images, will probably be killed off in future updates of Windows 10, replaced by the new app Paint 3D. Microsoft lists. Norton Power Eraser is designed to remove aggressive threats from your computer. It can scan for rootkit infections as well as other types of malware. Author Editor profile and more articles by Ionut Ilascuhttp hIDSERP,5119. Power Tools Norton Sandblasting EquipmentNorton Sandblasting Equipment provides power tools and accessories for paint removal, descaling, removing nonskid or scarring concrete. We also carry dust muzzles. Master Airbrush Model G78 Airbrushing System with Model TC20T Air Compressor with Air Storage Tank. System Includes Master Airbrush Model G78 Airbrush Set. If not, the data in the report can help the support agent sort out your troubles. I timed a full antivirus scan on my standard clean virtual machine. It took an hour and 5. Free Download Norton Power Eraser 5. Eliminates deeply embedded and difficult traces in order to remove crimeware that traditional virus sca. As with many products, a second scan ran faster, but in Nortons case that repeat scan still took 4. Bull. Guard finished a repeat scan in five minutes, Kaspersky in four, and ESET NOD3. Antivirus took just 3. A Norton Insight scan reported that 9. However, a full scan afterward didnt run any more quickly. My Symantec contact explained that engineering recently made some changes that appear to have inadvertently slowed down certain scans, and that theyre working to resolve the problem. Once youve made a full scan, real time protection should take care of any new problems, so a long scan time isnt a serious problem. Editors Note 1. Symantecs engineers did resolve the problem, and pushed out a fix to all users in Live. Update. After the fix, a repeat scan completed in 1. Scores From Excellent to Perfect. Norton relies on many factors when checking for malicious files, including the source of the file. A file downloaded from the internet gets more intense scrutiny than one that was sitting in a folder before antivirus installation. And that makes sense. Rather than just opening an existing folder of malware samples, I put the folder in my Dropbox cloud storage and downloaded it to the test computer. I mixed a collection of uncommon but legitimate utilities with the malware. Going forward, Ill do all my malware testing this way. Norton started picking off samples as soon as the download finished. After a few minutes, it had eliminated all but one of them, while leaving the legitimate files alone. When I launched the one holdout, Norton detected and disinfected it. That makes Norton the only product to earn a perfect 1. Yes, PC Pitstop PC Matic managed 1. It blocks any unknown program, good or bad. Tested using my previous collection of samples, several products managed 1. Webroot and Comodo Antivirus completely blocked every detected sample, thereby earning 1. Malware Protection Results Chart. My malicious URL blocking test evaluates how well an antivirus prevents internet based malware from infesting the test computer. This test starts with a feed of malware hosting URLs supplied by MRG Effitas. I use the very latest URLs, usually no more than 2. I launch each URL and note whether the antivirus blocks access in the browser, eliminates the download, or does nothing. When I have 1. 00 valid data points, its time to check the results. For most of the test, Nortons detection remained evenly balanced between blocking URLs and eliminating downloads. It caught some downloads before I even clicked Save. In all, it blocked 5. URL level and 4. 4 percent during download, for a total of 9. Thats the same score it achieved last time, and still the best of any current product. Trend Micro Antivirus Security came very close, with 9. Norton took the top score in my malicious URL blocking test, and the highest possible score in my malware protection test. Thats quite a feat. Decent Lab Results. I mentioned that the full power of Nortons malware detection relies on many factors, including the source of a file. When confronted with a static collection of samples, it doesnt necessarily work as well as in a real world situation. Thats the reason Symantec gives for its good not great scores in some tests by independent antivirus labs. Lets start with the bad news. MRG Effitas runs two tests, one specific to banking Trojans and one using a variety of malware types. RIP, Microsoft Paint. MS Paint, the first app you used for editing images, will probably be killed off in future updates of Windows 1. Paint 3. D. Microsoft lists the 3. Windows 1. 0s next autumn update, a little X marking the end of an era. The app is certainly a relic, from a time when the casual computer user couldnt crack open Photoshop or Skitch or Pixelmator or thousands of web apps. MS Paint cant save image components as layers or vectors its for making flat static images only. It doesnt smooth lines or guess at your best intentions. It does what you tell it and nothing more, faithfully representing the herky jerky motion of drawing freehand with a computer mouse. Its from a time before touch, a time before trackpads. As more sophisticated options appeared, Paints janky aesthetic became a conscious choice. Paint became the metonym for that aesthetic, even if an image was actually created in another app. TV Tropes lists major limitations that came to define a certain look the wobbly freehand lines, awkward color handling, and inappropriate export settings that give Paint its distinctive look. In 2. 01. 4, Gawkers Sam Biddle noted Paints influence on conspiracy theory images, calling the form Chart Brut. In amateur detectives attempts at identifying the Boston Marathon bombers, the simplicity and jaggedness of Paint evokes the crazy wall aesthetic of red string and scribbled notes, apparently without irony. The same year, internet historian Patrick Davison explored Paints influence on the last decade of meme culture, particularly Rage Comics. The outsider art aesthetic feels appropriate to the relatable everyday content, and makes the art form unthreatening. Of course, Paint offered a few features to smooth things out, like the circle and line tools and the fill tool, all used in the stoner comics of the early 1. Crucially, those circles still had jagged curves. The bright colors of stoner comics are flat, as MS Paint didnt support gradients without an elaborate hack. Contrast those pixellated lines with the slick, stylish face from this art tutorial This slickness is built into Paints successor, Paint 3. D. From the moment you start sketching, Paint 3. D smooths out your art. Com Files Msjavx86 Executive. It also supports automatic selection tools and content aware fill to rival Photoshops. By automatically improving art, Paint 3. D hides the process behind the image. Paints sloppiness is probably why rage comics got so popular. Looking at a rage comic, you can tell exactly how it was drawn, and how you might draw one yourself. By delivering exactly what the artist draws, MS Paint forms an image that the viewer can mentally reverse engineer and imitate. Unless you go absolutely nuts with it. Reddit user Toweringhorizon painstakingly assembled the drawing To a Little Radio using MS Paint tools like the oil brush, stretching the medium while maintaining a pixelated look. Its one of the top submissions to MS Paint subreddit, a beautiful collaborative art gallery. Scrolling through this art feels like flipping through the sketchbook of the most artistic kid in high school. Theres an accepted roughness, a desired minimalism. For example, the exquisite raindrops in the work above are reflected in a flat, featureless tabletop. Like a transistor radio, Paint might be showing its age, but this tenacious little gadget should not be underestimated. To a Little Radio doesnt even come close to testing Paints limits. As we say goodbye to the app that shaped an era, let us watch this bizarrely soundtracked time lapse of drawing Santa Claus in MS Paint on Windows 7 over the course of 5. We can only believe this is real because faking it would be even harder.