Symantec offer free upgrades for Vista

After publicly lambasting Microsoft for making life tough for third-party security software developers, Symantec has finally released Vista-compatible updates to its Norton suite.

"Norton Internet Security, Norton AntiVirus and
Norton Confidential will be Vista-compatible in time for the public
release of the Windows Vista Operating System for consumers," the company said.

Anyone who bought Norton Internet Security 2006 or 2007, Norton AntiVirus 2006 or 2007, or Norton Confidential for XP will be eligible for a free Vista compatibility upgrade.

NIS and NAV subscribers will also get membership to a malware-detection network, similar to Microsoft SpyNet, collecting intelligence on malware from users' PCs all around the world to ensure that if other people's PCs become infected, you'll get new protection even if Symantec hasn't yet had time to make a signature update.

"SONAR is behavioral detection technology that protects against malicious code before standard virus and spyware detection definitions have been created. Such emerging and unknown malicious code can strike in the form of Trojan Horses, worms, mass-mailing viruses, spyware or downloaders," said Rowan Trollope of Symantec's Consumer Business Unit.

"SONAR technology provides protection against emerging threats in a way that does not compromise the user experience or require additional system resources. When detections are made through SONAR, no user interaction is required."

The company says its SONAR technology has a false positive detection rate (where legitimate software is identified as malware) as low as four in 1,000,000 users.