Symantec Endpoint Security Protection review for home use! - Andrew3000 personal feedback - standard unmanaged client

Product name
Symatec Endpoint Protection 14.2 - Client on PC (standard unmanaged client)
Installation (rating)
5.00 star(s)
User interface (rating)
4.00 star(s)
Accessibility notes
Well, being a product primarily addressed to the use endpoint so the UI is not simple but at the same time not too complex. Don’t expect a modern interface, the UI style is old (the first time the UI can be tricky but don't worry It will be easy to learn everything).
Performance (rating)
5.00 star(s)
Core Protection (rating)
5.00 star(s)
Proactive protection (rating)
5.00 star(s)
Additional Protection notes
As you can see here: https://www.av-comparatives.org/enterprise/comparison/ and https://www.av-comparatives.org/tests/business-security-test-march-april-2019-factsheet/
Norton SEP is one of the best endpoint/av suite on the market.
You can personalize every single aspect of the protection.
The heuristic is strong, can detect a lot of malicious program (even if sometimes it exaggerates, showing false positives but nothing negative).
SONAR is literally the key of this product, can detect 0-day malware easily, this SONAR is stronger than other Norton products (Norton Security Deluxe).
The Exploit protection and the firewall are very good.
To conclude, if you are looking for an endpoint product to use for the protection of your home PC, Norton SEP is a great alternative (30 days of trial included!).
Positives
    • Many features
    • Low impact on system resources
    • Lightning fast scans
    • Highly configurable
    • Ransomware protection
    • Strong and reliable protection
    • Detects or blocks in the wild malware
    • Consistently high test scores
    • Accurate results and reliable antivirus engine
    • Virus signatures are updated daily
    • Excellent scores in independent tests
    • Great value for money
    • Features you can't get elsewhere for free
    • Effective malware removal
    • Multi-layer protection approach
Negatives
    • Not for beginners
    • Clumsy or awkward interface (UI)
    • Can be complex in some situations
Time spent using product
Reviewed over a 30-day period
Computer specs
i5 4690K
8GB RAM
GTX 960
120GB SDD - 1TB HDD
Recommended for
  1. Experienced users
Overall rating
5.00 star(s)

Burrito

Level 24
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
May 16, 2018
1,363
It's only on sale for business and the only way to get a trial is with an account and in ebay it costs a lot. Did they offer it for private users before?
Sorry for replying to an old thread :(

Hmmm... that does seem to have changed.

One used to be able to buy SEP(C) on Amazon -- an unmanaged endpoint license.

I use both SEP and Norton. In my opinion, Norton is better.
 

Dave Russo

Level 21
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
May 26, 2014
1,041
It's only on sale for business and the only way to get a trial is with an account and in ebay it costs a lot. Did they offer it for private users before?
Sorry for replying to an old thread :(
Still on sale E-Bay about 20 dollars for supposed lifetime subscription,used to be 4.95$ Symantec Endpoint Protection 14- Antivirus 2019 - Lifetime - Windows 64bit Type this in search on e-Bay
 
Last edited:

alv222

Level 2
Oct 11, 2019
76
Still on sale E-Bay about 20 dollars for supposed lifetime subscription,used to be 4.95$ Symantec Endpoint Protection 14- Antivirus 2019 - Lifetime - Windows 64bit Type this in search on e-Bay
The thing is it can't be lifetime at all. Maybe pirated or someone is trying to earn money from their company's license and when they find it out they remove the device
 

MacDefender

Level 16
Verified
Top Poster
Oct 13, 2019
779
SEP has some cool functionality not in Norton like the 8 or so selectable levels of SONAR aggressiveness and a bit more configurability of actions to take but Norton also has more user interactive prompting ability and a shinier UI.

Overall for home users I would recommend just sticking with Norton.... Especially since the Broadcom acquisition made it harder to buy first party SEPC licenses.
 

Evjl's Rain

Level 47
Verified
Honorary Member
Top Poster
Content Creator
Malware Hunter
Apr 18, 2016
3,684
I had a chance to use this AV. It felt light but I don't understand why CPU usage never dropped to 0% when I was doing nothing, just observed task manager. It always consumed more than 1% even after several reboots, slight tweaks and full scan
 

MacDefender

Level 16
Verified
Top Poster
Oct 13, 2019
779
CPU percentage isn't a great indication of load. When your processor scales down from 3GHz to 800MHz, 1% seems like a lot but is not actually that much computation. Looking at the wakeups is going to be more meaningful. With that said, at low system load, an AV'S impact is going to be higher. And SEP monitors so much -- network traffic at both the connection and packet level, behavior blocking, cloud lookups, etc. This is one of the tradeoffs with a kitchen sink anti-malware suite.
 

Vitali Ortzi

Level 22
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Dec 12, 2016
1,147
in my experience sep isn't light for very low end devices
but can be boosted a lot via policy or unmanaged gui .
here is a few things you can do to boost it a little : Recommended security settings for Endpoint Protection

constant 1% 24/7 is too much
in my experience, this heavily affects the battery life of laptops more than I imagined

I don't know what it was doing to consume that much CPU and how to reduce them. I simply left the product
what clock speed the cpu was running at?

Still on sale E-Bay about 20 dollars for supposed lifetime subscription,used to be 4.95$ Symantec Endpoint Protection 14- Antivirus 2019 - Lifetime - Windows 64bit Type this in search on e-Bay
pm me if you want it free
 
F

ForgottenSeer 55474

Hello It really sounds & looks good, but I am gonna stick with BTS, but thanks for the great review. :)
 

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