Norman Virus Control review

Norman Data Defense Systems is a company specialising in the computer protection and security.

Norman Virus Control is just one of the packages they produce. Primarily aimed at business users, Norman costs £40, but it's not widely available - best to go direct to Norman for a copy.

Prevention

Norman offers resident scanning, in a module it calls 'Cat's Claw'. This can be configured to automatically identify and clean macro viruses while accessing Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access and VBA files. Its 'Smart Behaviour Blocker' (SBB) also identifies virus-like behaviour and stops whatever process is going on. This should be effective against unknown viruses. On-demand scanning is available, while Cat's Claw and SBB are resident modules. Documentation is online, rather than in a printed manual, which is a bit of a drag if you need to read up on a virus you've already got.

Cure

Cat's Claw is the automatic cleaning side of Norman. It relies - like all anti-virus software - on an up-to-date definition file being present on your system. Definition files are available from the Norman website and are updated weekly - it's up to you to invoke the updater regularly. With a definition database of over 40,000 viruses and variants, Norman's initial scan of our test machine (on which the Ripper Virus was hiding on a secondary hard disk) correctly identified Ripper and offered to let us clean it without bailing out to DOS.

Overall

The modular approach to virus defence is fine for the business world, but in a single-user setup, an all-in-one approach to the detection engine is better. As a mid-priced contender in this group, Norman Virus Control is an excellent package, but there are cheaper and more efficient programs here.

Author: - David Dorn