BitDefender vs. Norton

[Moondoggy]

I would like to get some opinions regarding Bitdefender Internet Security vs. Norton Internet Security.
I've been around computers a long time and I know that every time you turn around there's a new "king of the hill" when it comes to Security Software so I realize that things can change rapidly so I'm going to take any information with a grain of salt. At this point I have not evaluated Security software in the last few years but I'm thinking that now might be a opportune time to do so.

Right now I have Norton Internet Security installed on both my laptop and my desktop PC and I have several months left on my subscription. I have noticed that on my laptop I've had some issues with restarts (i.e. black screen with circling white dots) after a Norton Patch and sometimes after Microsoft Updates. Another person on another forum said that he ditched Norton and his similar restart problems went away but he opted to go with the Microsoft solution which I don't trust. From what I understand Bitdefender is pretty good at protecting ones system but I would really like to know (A) is it as good or better than Norton all around and (B) is system performance any better under Bitdefender? If Bitdefender is that much better than Norton I would buy a copy of Bitdefender Internet Security and ditch Norton but I need to be sure that I would not be shooting myself in the foot. Thanks.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Norton is decent now , but Bitdefender , Trend Micro , Kaspersky and F-Secure are the elite.

 

[Moondoggy]

Norton is decent now , but Bitdefender , Trend Micro , Kaspersky and F-Secure are the elite.

Do you have any information regarding performance of BD vs. Norton?

 

[Rogue Leader]

While I don't have numbers for you, Norton is known for dragging down system performance. And every time I have encountered it even recently it has been a drag. I have 6 licenses for Bitdefender on all our systems, it is transparent, fast, and powerful. By far the best choice.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Norton was recoded a few years back after hackers had access to their software code , has been very light for about 5 years now.

Older Norton software slowed system , but not lately.

 

[Moondoggy]

Let me ask this question a different way. Has anyone noticed any problems with Norton running on laptops? Since the November release of Windows 10 I've noticed that my laptop takes forever to boot and once booted it takes forever for it to be usable as it's busy loading stuff. I've also had problems with my system after Norton patches that require a restart and Windows 10 Updates that require a restart. When a restart is required after one of these two types of updates the system will somtimes display the Windows logo and then the logo would go away and all I would see is a black screen with a rotating circle of white dots and that's where the system would hang. Sometimes I would have to press the power button and restart the laptop several times before it would get past the black screen and the circle of rotating dots. In addition I've had to uninstall and reinstall Norton 2 times on this laptop on recent months. The first time Windows 10 said the version of Norton I had installed was incompatible with Windows 10. The last time I had to reinstall was a week ago after a patch where Control Panel said that Norton was installed but I had no icons and no record of the app in the system tray or in the applications list when you pressed the start button.. After the most recent uninstall/reinstall things seemed to stabilized but startups were still sluggish. I posted a query about this condition on another forum and the response that I received led me to believe that all of the issues I was having was due to Norton as this person has the same issues and resolved them by removing Norton. Today, just for grins, I again uninstalled Norton on my laptop and installed the 30 day trial of Bitdefender and at this point I'm not sure if it's wishful thinking or reality but it seems that my startups are no longer sluggish and overall system performance seems better. This is one reason why I want to know what others are seeing regarding the difference between Bitdefender and Norton in terms of performance. If it is true that my system is not as sluggish as before and Bitdefender performs equally as well as Norton for Virus preventions, anti-spam, anti-malware, and keeping my inbox clean I might make the switch permanent and also replace Norton on my desktop PC that does not seem to have the problems my laptop is having

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

I have been using F-Secure , better than anything I've ever used.

 

[Moondoggy]

I thought that I would update this thread with my experience with Bitdefender on my HP Laptop.

First and foremost I had no problems with Bitdefender's protection but after months of use I got tired of having to frequently restart my system just to keep the software up to date. Due to an issue with my Logitech wireless mouse restarts are a hassle as I must pull the USB receiver from the port when the restart begins and plug it back in at a certain point before the restart ends. The other thing that I noticed was that it appeared to me that Bitdefender took a very long time to actually update the protection on my laptop and would initially slow my system when Windows would first start trying to perform the update. Since I still had Norton on my desktop PC it was fairly easy over time to compare the behavior of the two products and after seeing how both of them operate on a day to day basis I found Norton to actually be less intrusive then Bitdefender. So, after upgrading my laptop to the Windows 10 Creator's Edition, I've switched my laptop back to Norton since I still had a license for it. Anyway this is definitely not a scientific analysis of the products but after experiencing both products on my laptop I'm sticking with Norton.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Norton rewrote their whole software lineup several years ago and it is decent.

 

[Saga Lout]

This is a very old thread with the latest post before yours was a month ago. Please stick to current threads in future and by current, let's say where the last post was under a week back.

Thanks.

 

[Rowan_3]

You consider 7 months ago very old? I have this same question, so would this info be out of date already? Not sure what to get.

This is a very old thread with the latest post before yours was a month ago. Please stick to current threads in future and by current, let's say where the last post was under a week back.

Thanks.

 

[Rogue Leader]

You consider 7 months ago very old? I have this same question, so would this info be out of date already? Not sure what to get.

This is a very old thread with the latest post before yours was a month ago. Please stick to current threads in future and by current, let's say where the last post was under a week back.

Thanks.

In this place yes.

That said the data is still relevant. I have just re-upped my bitdefender subscription if that tells you anything. For now however this thread is closed. If you have any more questions I suggest starting a new thread.