Is Norton Anti Virus 2009 better then Avast?
Hmmm, a fair question.
I will not get into the details, but I will try and throw out a couple of reasons here.
Norton, and its' counter part McAfee, for some time now have been the standard for detection and protection software. The trouble is, the script kiddies are well versed in the "standards" and often create new and nastier little bugs to avoid such standards.
To combat this, Norton and McAfee kept adding to their engines, expanding rules, definitions, background detections, ect.
The end result of this little cyber war was that the standards became so over bloated that they started taking over the systems they were on. I have used both Norton and McAfee and in the beginning I was happy with both. As time went on, I found that my system was running slower and slower, that some commands that I had given to my system were being blocked and/or repeatedly scanned to death, and that in some cases, my boot time went from a few seconds to "oh lord, I better get a cup of coffee".
With Norton, my system eventually collapsed. When I noticed McAffee starting down the same road, I killed it to.
So, then I found myself with no AV scanner. For awhile I used online virus scanners, but this became inconvenient and offered no real time protection of course.
I used AVG for some time untill they changed the program in such away as it added to much garbage , (stuff I did NOT want), on to my system that it too became a bloated cow.
Enter !Avast. I found this av scanner to be feature rich, with a lighter profile on my system than any of the others. I also like its "modular" type of assembly, giving the user the choice as to suspend one or more parts of its' services without leaving the user wide open. It has regular updates, and strong protections.
That was reason enough for me. I have been using it ever since, and I have gotten my friends on it as well.
In closing, I guess the term "better" is a personal opinion. If you do not have any trouble with the "bloated cow" than stick with what you know. When you are tired of your system running like a turtle, dump Norton and get !Avast. Soap box has now been vacated
P.S. Before you ask, no, I did NOT run Norton and McAfee at the same time. That would be bad