Norton and McAfee, The 2 very well known software in the category of protecting their customers from online threats. Well, find yourself confused between the 2 while opting for a new one for your PC. Well, don’t worry, because we have carried out a full comparison review between the 2 so that you can understand what all things the 2 programs offer followed by how are they different from each other and based on that knowledge you can easily opt the one which fits the list of your day to day internet protection need.
So, Let’s get started.
Internet, the major pro and con in today’s time. As it is the hub full of merits in it, it is also a major housing body of millions of malware and viruses ready to infect the internet users. One can get A job to major virus just from a single click. At this point, antivirus is the program which comes into action, as these are the ware which tends to protect their customers from such threats.
People while opting for a new antivirus product often find themselves in this perpetual dilemma to decide which one to opt among these 2. Since they pack a lot in them and hence have a lot to offer to their customers. Although they may lack in one thing or 2 and may offer something more than the other has to offer which often tends to be the reason differentiating the two. Hence, the detailed comparison for the same is carried out making it easier for readers to decide between them.
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Security products offered by Norton and McAfee for home users
The list below explains about products offered by the companies for home users.
The Norton Antivirus Suites
- The Norton Antivirus Basic (Available in Windows only)
- Security standard version. Norton Security Standard (Available for both Windows and Macintosh).
- The Norton Security Deluxe. (Available for both Windows and Macintosh).
- Norton Security Premium Version (Available for both Windows and Macintosh).
McAfee Antivirus Suites
- McAfee Total Security Suite (Both Windows and Mac).
- And the McAfee LiveSafe Suite (Both Windows and Mac).
Therefore, the above list provides readers with the availability of all antivirus software provided by the 2 companies for home users.
Pre-Comparison Result (Short Verdict)
Note: This section of the article is for those who want to skip the effort of reading an in-depth comparison report of the 2 antiviruses and directly know the result.
As per the research, McAfee is the winning contender of the Comparison. Since it offers more security features and provides users with many different types of utility tools than Norton has to offer. Apart from that Norton offers more no. of different antivirus versions for its customers to choose from. Although, Both McAfee and Norton had similar results in the “Protection” category, McAfee managed to excel with slightly better results. Also, as per the Lab test reports McAfee excels with a slight difference from Norton in protection test. Although it was a tie between the 2 in an impact test.
It is recommended to kindly read the full comparison report for in-depth knowledge of what both the software has to offer before opting for any one of them.
A detailed description of everything included in Norton’s Antivirus Suites
Norton is a well-known name in the field of antivirus. It is because of its product quality as well as because of the features it offers to its customers. The company provides its users with many versions to choose from according to their needs. Hence the detailed description of those versions are as follows:
Norton Antivirus Basic
Regardless of Avast offering freeware, Norton doesn’t provide users with a free version. Instead, it provides a base version known as Norton Antivirus Basic. This, in particular, is responsible for the protection of users from potential threats. Such as spyware, viruses, identity theft, and other online threats. It also removes hard to remove malicious ware and tends to keep you protected on social media.
Note: Keep in mind that this particular version is only available in Windows Operating Systems.
Norton Security Standard
This is the next level of version Norton provides to its users. This particular Antivirus software consists of a firewall to police the home network, Whereas it comes with premium support and a 100% refund guarantee if the experts failed to keep your system safe and, of course, it consists of all the features available in the Basic version of the software. a single subscription covers off one Windows, Mac and a smartphone.
Norton Security Deluxe
This particular version consists of all the features available in the Standard edition. Also, it adds up a web portal to manage all of your devices in one place and protects up to 5 devices which can be any device regardless of their OS. Additional features added to this software are of disk optimizer, a file cleanup tool, and a startup manager. The startup manager lets you manage the files which will run during the startup.
Must read: Mcafee vs Malwarebytes
Norton Security Premium
This version adds up features of “The Family premiere” which tends to provide you with the ability to set parental control features for your children. Also, the software consists of an automatic backup of selected files from up to 5 family devices and a 25 GB cloud storage.
A detailed description of everything included in McAfee’s Antivirus Suites
McAfee is a well-renowned antivirus software known for its security and features. It is one of the famous antiviruses present out there in the market. It provides users with different products. Hence, those are stated above, readers can refer to the context stated above. Therefore all the things which the available versions of the software have to offer are as follows:
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McAfee Total Protection
This particular product is the companies most profound and best-selling product. It offers its users with complete protection from all types of threats. Besides that, it offers a 2-way firewall, a file shredder, and a file utility tool. Whereas, it also comprises of a Network Manager (Responsible for the protection of wifi network and prevents the intruder’s interference), an anti-spam filter(Blocks of malicious emails and messages) and a Vulnerability Scanner suite(keeps check on outdated software and other security flaws).
On top of that, the software consists of A Parental Control module, a social media guard, and several computer optimization tools present there in the software. The “Total Protection” subscription also provides the customers with five licenses 0f True Key Identity Manager (Password manager by McAfee). The single subscription of the high-end product by McAfee also allows the protection of up to 10 devices regardless of their OS.
McAfee guarantees in the state of Malware infection, that McAfee expert will either remove the virus completely or will refund your money. Supporting its statement stating “100% virus Protection Guarantee”.
Note: The software also provides an extension of Web Advisor, which users can buy separately.
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McAfee LiveSafe
The LiveSafe version by McAfee offers everything present there in the Total Protection Suite. Also, it provides its customers with 1GB of Secure cloud storage to store their files.
Note: Both “Total Security” and “LiveSafe” by McAfee offers compatibility with Windows, Android, Mac, and iOS devices.
Therefore, the Above context explains everything about all the available suites by McAfee.
Norton vs McAfee (in terms of providing better protection)
As of the 2 software, both of them are considered to be pretty accurate and proficient Antivirus in terms of protection and providing features. It is majorly because of their protection, utility tools and services they provide to their customers. In today’s date, there is a growing number of internet users day by day, therefore threats are also increasing at a faster rate. Hence, both the software provides nominal features for the protection of an individual from such threats.
Therefore, the tests were held by AV-Test and AV-Comparatives. To check how well an Antivirus is against such increasing threats. Since these are the software responsible for an individual’s internet security and safety.
Note: The tests were carried out on a standard PC as well as a High-end PC.
AV-Test (Tests)
There were 2 different tests conducted against 228 zero-day malware and 4,877 widespread malware in January and February 2018.
As of the Norton result, it came out with a perfect protection rate of 100% as it blocked 100% of both types of malware samples attaining a perfect 6/6 score from AV experts in the “Protection Category”.
Whereas on the other hand, McAfee maintained its proficiency by blocking of 100% of widespread malware in both the months, But its proficiency came to a drop against zero-day malware as it only blocked 99.2% of the zero-day malware in January, Whereas managed to rise the charts once again by blocking off 100% of the zero-day malware in February.
Therefore, it also received a perfect score of 6/6 by AV experts in the “Protection Category”.
Note: The above-stated tests were conducted on Windows 7 OS. Whereas, when similar tests were conducted on the Windows 10 platform in November and December 2018. They both showed flawless results in both the month.
Stated below are the result showed by both the software in November and December 2018 on the Windows 10 platform.
AV-Comparatives (Tests)
The AV-Comparatives held a study in March 2018. In which both of them were tested against real-world malware conditions in the “Real-World Protection Test” and simple malware conditions in the “Malware Protection Test”.
As for the test results in the “Malware Protection” test, McAfee displayed an impressive protection rate of 99.95% and returned 10 false positives and hence was awarded the second best honor “ADVANCED” award by AV experts.
And for Norton’s test, it wasn’t very impressive as it displayed an excellent protection rate of 99.99% but was brought down to the third-best “STANDARD” award because of its high number of false positives returned.
And for the result of the “Real-world Protection test” Both Norton and McAfee portrayed impressive results. Norton displayed a protection rate of 99.5% with 5 false positives whereas McAfee showed a protection rate of 99.1% while only returning 2 false positives.
Hence, for the protection test on two software, It is clear that Norton and McAfee are pretty capable of providing with the best protection to their customers, but as of the result they both proved to be very competitive in this category as they came up with almost the similar score in the “Protection” category. But as per the Lab test evaluations, McAfee excels from Norton making it the winner of this particular category.
Norton vs McAfee (in terms of impact on system)
Real-time scanning or in other words background activity of Antivirus. Lately, it has been a concern of people for quite some time now, it is mainly because they tend to eat up most of the CPU performance. But is important for the sake of safety and security against online threats.
Therefore, for antivirus to ensure the stability of the system as well as OS it should imply less strain on PC because the heavy strain can be a more viable reason for unexpected pauses and hang in a system that can be pretty annoying sometimes.
Therefore, tests were conducted by independent labs to carry out the result of how the 2 software fared in a particular category. By carrying out a couple of activities like launching popular websites, downloading and installing, commonly used applications, copying of files, and more.
Note: The tests were carried out on a standard PC as well as a High-end PC.
Norton’s Impact Test
As for Norton’s impact test result, it attained a perfect 6/6 score by AV experts as it also showed the same results as that of Bitdefender in the AV-Test.
Below are the test results of Norton’s Impact test held by AV-Test.
And for the AV-Comparatives test, Norton was able to bag the topmost “ADVANCED+” award due to its low impact score of 8.7.
Below are the test results of Norton’s Impact test held by AV-Comparatives
McAfee’s impact Test
On the other hand, McAfee attained a nominally good score of 5.5/6 by the AV experts in the “Performance” category. Since it was very minimal in the background but was able to exert a slightly high strain on the CPU as compared to Bitdefender.
Below are the test reports for McAfee in the “Performance” Category (AV-Test).
And for the AV-Comparatives test results, McAfee also attains the top-end “ADVANCED+” rating making it a pretty lightweight software and hence also exerted a pretty low impact score of 7.3 as well.
Below are the test reports for McAfee in the “Performance” Category (AV-Comparatives).
As for this test conclusion, it is clear that both of the software is pretty stable and tend to provide minimal impact on the system. Whereas, if we go for the stats, Both Norton and McAfee seemed to portray similar results and hence almost tend to provide similar performance hence its a tie for the “Performance” category.
Norton vs McAfee (Comparing Prices)
Almost both companies resulted in attaining a good score and almost contains similar features. But as for the price tags, it might not be the same case. As in this section, we’ll be stating the allotted price of each software version provided by both companies. Hence making it easier for readers to decide which one falls in their budget range.
Norton Antivirus Software Pricing
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Norton Antivirus Basic
The Norton Antivirus Basic is priced at rupees 899 for a year subscription.
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Norton Security Standard
This version of the software is set at a price of rupees 1,099 for a year subscription.
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Norton Security Deluxe
The price of this version of the software is set to be rupees 2,999 for 1- year subscription.
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Norton Security Premium
This particular version is set to price at rupees 3,999 for a year subscription.
Therefore, the context stated above tells the readers about the prices available for all different types of Norton software.
McAfee Antivirus Software Pricing
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McAfee Total Protection
The total protection by McAfee is available for you to purchase at cost of rupees 1400 for a year subscription and protection up to 5 devices.
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McAfee LiveSafe
The LiveSafe version is cost at rupees 1299 for a year subscription for 1 device protection.
Note: Each product prices vary depending on the no. of devices protection is needed for.
Therefore, the context stated above tells the readers about the prices available for all different types of McAfee software on a different platform.
Final Thoughts (Winning verdict)
As in today’s date, everyone needs to own a premium antivirus software. Since they tend to provide individuals with the basic need of security and safety from online threats. As of both the antiviruses discussed in this article. Both Norton and McAfee proved to meet the basic as well as advanced needs of an individual. Although, the comparison is strictly carried out for people to understand what 2 programs have to offer and the difference between and hence also make it easy for them to opt the one which suits best for their needs.
Hence, the conclusion is that both of the Antivirus software are very well functioning and, are pretty successful in protecting the individual from online threats and malicious ware. But as of the result of the comparison between the 2. McAfee excels, Because of its streamlined features as well as prices and options available for all the customers. Also, it highly excels in terms of giving out false positives. Meaning that it tend to report very few safe files as a threat in comparison to that of Norton Antivirus.
Therefore, it is clear that McAfee is the winning contender of this head to head comparison between Norton and McAfee.
Note: Both Norton and McAfee tend to have similar scores but McAfee excels in giving out false positives making it the winner of the head to head comparison.