Norton AntiVirus 11 for Macintosh

Antivirus Software

Name of antivirus software: 

Operating system in use: 

System performance 

Ability to prevent malware 

Ability to remove malware 

My Review 

There aren't a lot of viruses or malware for the Mac, so I'm not really sure how well Norton prevents malware, but I can tell you that it has some major annoyances, including:

* it opens a little window that doesn't use standard Mac controls (cmd-q to quit for instance)

* it scans my mail and if it finds malware it wants to delete the entire inbox rather than just the bad message

* then if the bad message is moved to trash AND trash is deleted it still prompts me to delete the entire inbox folder (Thunderbird)

* plus, I hate how it tells you it found a virus, but doesn't know what to do with it. It asks me, which is fine, but the "options" are usually just quarantine. If there is only one option, WHY is it asking me???

And what does quarantine mean, anyway? I can't find that information anywhere in the software or on the Symantec site.

The Mac version of Norton Antivirus has always been a bastardized version of the Windows software. I wish they would hire some Mac developers and write an OS X native app from the ground up.

The only reason I have recommended it is I haven't found another security vendor I trust, and the Symantec virus defs team does fine.

Would you recommend this to a friend?