Symantec today released Norton AntiVirus 2009 Gaming Edition, an antivirus utility designed specifically not to bother gamers while they, err, game. The "Gamer Mode" suspends updates, alerts, and other background activities when you're in the middle of a game. It is automatically enabled when the system is in full screen mode (and can also be manually enabled). Resource-intensive actions such as a system scan only occur when the computer is idle. Whilst the installation still requires 150MB of hard disk space (with definitions), Norton claims that it now requires less than 6MB of memory, a small amount compared to their last release. They also claim that it "adds less than 3 seconds to boot time", which is one of the main issues with previous releases of their anti-virus products, as well as some other security products. Besides, 150MB is half the amount required by Norton 360, which was their last security suite.

That is the worst GUI of any program I have seen in the past ten years. I can't believe a company like Symantec, once a valued and trusted security firm, would ever design something like this, let alone put it in a box and sell it. What a ****ing joke! The interface seems to have been stolen from the Asus motherboard update program <grin> On the other hand, it's nice to know they've (finally) caught on to fixing their mistakes :-)

FYI, I haven't used antivirus software in over 15 years and I've never had a virus or malware of any kind. The best way to avoid junk like this is to keep your machines up to date and don't act like an idiot on the internet (read: don't download crap you don't need or don't trust). It seems to me that antivirus software is just a way to make money hand over fist and clog up the resources on someone's machine...which leads to searches for "optimization" software...which often contains spyware/adware/viruses...which makes the user think the antivirus software is actually useful. Sick cycle :-(

Symantec has been increasingly becoming a bad joke for a long time now. Massive system resource usage, slow, impossible to uninstall with any ease... the list goes on.

That said, anyone who doesn't use some form of antivirus product is fooling himself. There are many legitimate sources on the Net where viruses have shown up, sometimes even on installation media from reputable computer manufacturers.

Without antivirus, how will you even know in most cases if you've been trojaned or rootkitted? Those things don't exactly advertise their presence. Fortunately, there are free alternatives that don't use too many resources and are, well, free. AVG, for instance.