Norton antivirus is one of the best known that we can find on the net. This antivirus obtains very good results in the different security and performance tests, as well as being one of the ones that usually comes as a default installer on new computers as part of bloatware. If we decide to stay with it (or at least take advantage of the trial version that they give us) it is very important to make sure that this antivirus is correctly updated so that it can give us the best possible protection.
Norton has many advantages and disadvantages such as antivirus and security software. And one of the weak points of this security software is its updates. It is true that, like any other, it has its own automatic update engine ( Norton LiveUpdate ). However, the updates are much more intrusive than those of other antivirus, something that we will be able to notice from the first moment.
Updates to this security software are mainly divided into two parts: updates to the antivirus core (the program and the engine) and the new databases. Below we will see how to keep Norton up to date to be protected from viruses.
Update Norton antivirus
In order to access the “LiveUpdate” section of this antivirus, what we must do is click on the “Security” section that appears in the main program window, so that we can see the different modules related to this program.
By clicking on this section, a new window will directly open. This will be the one in charge of looking for all the updates that are available. LiveUpdate will search for new versions of the antivirus program as such, as well as databases. We do not have different sections for each type of update, everything will be done from the same main interface.
Updates will be downloaded automatically from this window, and once downloaded they will be installed on the system. A simple database update won’t take long, but a program update could take a few minutes. And also the antivirus software is “hanging” while it is installed, something that does not give too much confidence.
We can choose to apply the update at the moment, or leave it for later, whatever we want.
We already have our Norton antivirus up to date , giving us the best protection. However, after updating Norton manually, we recommend rerunning LiveUpdate to look for any possible patches that may be left in the pipeline. So until our antivirus is completely up to date.
Check antivirus update status
If we want to know when the antivirus has been updated, we can see it from the main window of the security software. In the ” Protection updates ” section that we can find in its main window we can see when the antivirus was last updated. If it marks as “current” it is that the antivirus is up to date.
We can also better check the version of the antivirus program that we have installed from the help section. This will allow us to ensure that, in addition to having the latest version of the database, we also have the latest version of the engine, shields and other components of the security software.
Configure updates
Norton doesn’t give us much control over updates, as we can see. And it doesn’t give us much detail about the type of updates, either. However, we are going to be able to control some basic aspects of LiveUpdate, although the truth is that each one is in one place.
The first thing to do is open the antivirus configuration menu. We can do this from the main window, by clicking on the “settings” button at the top. When doing so, the following window will appear, from which we can access all the options offered by this software.
From here we will be able to choose whether or not we want to postpone the updates. We can disable them for a specific time, until the restart of the PC and even permanently.
And, continuing within the Configuration panel, if we enter the “Antivirus” section, we will be able to see the last two options we have to control Norton updates. The first of them allows us to activate or deactivate these automatic updates, while the second of them allows us to choose whether we want to apply the updates only when restarting the PC, or if we want them to be applied automatically as soon as they are downloaded.
As we see, we will not have many options when choosing how we want to update Norton. This can be bad for users who want to have everything much more controlled, although it can also be an advantage if you look with the same eyes with which Microsoft has looked at Windows 10: if the user does not have control over something, it is less likely that it breaks or malfunctions.
