Norman Virus Control 5.6 By Jay Munro November 25, 2003

• Product: Norman Virus Control 5.6
• Price: $60 per year
• Company Info: Norman Data Defense Systems Inc., 888-466-6762, www.norman.com/us

Editor Rating:

Norman Data Defense Systems, a name that's more familiar in corporate circles, offers protection for both known and unknown viruses. With an interface only a techie could love, its centerpiece, Norman Virus Control 5.6, is an advanced virtual "sandbox" environment for catching new viruses and worms. Including both workstation and server-specific features, Virus Control offers generous options. But with its multimodule interface and sometimes jargony help system, it is not a good choice for home users who want to "set and forget" their antivirus software.

Virus Control's sandbox technology fakes viruses into trying to wreak havoc within a safe, isolated virtual Windows environment. While other companies use virtual machine technology to ferret out polymorphic and other viruses, Norman claims that its sandbox is richer, including network, Web, and e-mail simulation to catch e-mail and network threats.

Virus Control installs quickly, and as with ViRobot Expert 4.5, you can check for updates during installation.

Unlike the competitors, which each have a single control panel, Norman presents various interfaces depending on the task. For example, the configuration editor group is for basic antivirus settings, and the utility group lets you see more esoteric details, such as component build dates and the contents of your quarantine. If you want to scan your hard drive every Friday night, you must go to the separate task editor to create a task file. The scheduled task can run automatically or can just pop up a window for you to start. One task setting lets you pick normal or low resource usage, though we were unable to see a difference in our testing.

As with ViRobot, technically inclined people will like Virus Control's precise control over scan targets, log file settings, and update scheduling. Although the help system isn't very helpful, Virus Control provides plenty of documentation on its site, including two white papers about its sandbox technology and a comprehensive review of viruses. Norman has an impressive track record withVirus Bulletin's VB 100% award (especially since 2000), but features that scan for adware, spyware, and dialers are still a few months away. It's a good choice for those in the know, but typical home users are better off with the McAfee or Norton AV products.