Antivirus - Norton vs. Microsoft thoughts?

My laptop is quite old and I am thinking of buying Microsoft Surface. For protection, I have been using Norton for my current laptop.

Last week I went to Microsoft store. One of the guys told me that their antivirus software (the one that comes with Surface - so, it is free) was better than that of Norton therefore I would not need to use Norton's software. But when I did some research it seems Norton performs better and offers more protection.

So, which is better? Does Microsoft Essentials provide enough protection? Using Norton on top of Microsoft antivirus software is an overkill?

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Comments

boxerboy1168

I have never used an anti-virus in my entire life.

Danielm7

If you're getting a surface you'll have Win10, so it's Windows Defender, it's actually pretty decent on Win10. You should always act like you don't have it anyway, don't rely on the AV, be careful of the sites you visit, stuff you download, etc.

636-555-3226

don't pay for traditional AV. use the free stuff windows comes with. the old traditional AV is all pretty much equivalent. they leapfrog over each other in terms of what they detect from day-to-day.

UnixGuy

+1 use the Free Windows Defender.

scaredoftests

Avira. No to Norton (use too much resources) and to M$.

Queue

Using two AV's will drastically deplete your CPU's resources. I have improved many of aged laptops by removing some clunky AV and using Windows Defender.

markulous

For home/personal use, I don't see the point in paying for an AV solution. Windows Defender is fine for signature based stuff and it uses very little resources.

Defense in depth is your friend here and that's going to help in the long run more than which AV solution you pick. Disabled unneeded services/features, harden your group policies, use something like DNSCrypt, use OpenDNS, use common sense, etc. Get uBlock, NoScript/Umatrix, Https Everywhere, WOT, in Chrome 64-bit.

tunerX

I use SEP on my Macs and McAfee on my windows boxes. I don't have a problem with either.

If I didn't get access to them free I would probably purchase SEP For the Mac and use Windows Defender for Windows 10.

stryder144

I will throw in RansomFree to help detect the beginning of a ransomware attack. It should kill the PID of the cryptoware that is trying to encrypt everything. Best part is that it is free for home and business use.

UnixGuy

My other suggestion would be MalwareBytes. Very light weight and super effective.

oscp

Ironically enough when friends or family need help with an infected computer, 9 times out of 10 they already have Norton or McAfee or whatever big name antivirus someone told them to get. And if this changes your perception, even in the entry level pen testing course offensive security offers, there is an entire chapter/section entitled "Bypassing Antivirus Software" so it could be argued that even the best antivirus is still only effective against a mediocre percentage of attacks.
Windows 10 built in security can't be any worse. However it's impossible to turn off the auto updates and auto restart in windows 10 so if you're somebody who likes to wake up to the work you were doing the night before, run from windows 10 as fast as possible.
Like Markulous already said, you'd be much better learning safe computer habits and using a few hardening tools than you would be trusting a signature based AV to keep your computer safe while you click every link and open every email in sight