Symantec Releases Norton AntiVirus “Gaming Edition”

One common complaint I hear often with regards to anti-virus applications is that they can suck the fun right out of your gaming. The problem could either be simple, such as a pop-up that boots you to your desktop, or a more complicated one where portions of your online game won’t function at all (eg: updaters). Sadly, the most common answer to someone’s predicament is usually, “Just turn the AV off.”, which is clearly the wrong one.

Symantec seems to recognize this fact and have released a “Gaming Edition” of their anti-virus software. Its “Gamer Mode” essentially allows you to halt almost all operation during gameplay, except virus detection. This means that you’ll receive no pop-ups during gameplay, nor will the AV even download updates. All it will do is continue to monitor the system in case a virus happens to make it onto your system during use.

That basically sums up what the “Gaming Edition” is all about. The respective product-page also has a few bits of information that might be of interest to some. Symantec touts that during regular use, the AV will use an average of 5.38MB of RAM, and that its install size is 49.7MB. That’s impressive, especially since Norton tends to be known as being one of the more “bloated” AVs out there. I’m not much of a Windows user, and I don’t run an AV even when I do use it, but this new version has me tempted.

Norton AntiVirus 2009 Gaming Edition is the fastest virus protection you can get. It stops spyware, worms, bots, and other threats cold—without slowing down your PC. When you’re gaming, your protection should get out of the way. Norton AntiVirus 2009 Gaming Edition does exactly that.