Blackbird
Built for Speed
Premium
join:2005-01-14
Fort Wayne, IN
 ·Verizon Online DSL
| reply to Oleg
Re: Norton Anti-Virus
To "prefer" something means to like better or to choose one thing above something else. The interpretational danger with results of any wide-open "preference" poll is that they too often lead the casual reader to incorrectly assume the respondents have chosen between more than one product based on some kind of usage experience with multiple products. But I believe simple reality is that most users who respond to such polls are merely voting for whatever product has been pre-installed on their computers or else vote for the first (and only) product they themselves have bought for whatever reason. If they've never been "burned" in some way by that AV program, their reaction will generally be highly positive for the brand, simply out of ignorance of hands-on knowledge of other brands' comparative performance - a form of "brand loyalty". But if the respondents WERE burned by a product and switched to another AV brand, they'll generally respond favorably for the later AV unless it too has let them down somehow... but THAT preference vote at least represents an experienced, hands-on "choice" they've actually made between products.
As it stands, IMHO, I think this poll as presently constructed is actually a representation of "are you satisfied with your present AV." To develop a "preference" poll that has basis in hands-on AV experience, one needs to somehow limit respondents to only those persons who either:
1) regularly use (or have used during the past 3 years or so) more than one AV on their computer(s)
2) have changed the primary AV program brand on their computer at least once during the past 3 or so years
3) have regularly used other AV program brands (resident or online) to check the effectiveness of their "preferred" AV brand.
Only then will you have poll results that truly reflect folks' AV preferences with a basis in hands-on, comparative product experience. Now THOSE poll results might be remarkably revealing... or maybe not?  My thought is that the poll results would look radically different from the current poll. 
--
If God wanted us to work with electrons, He'd make them big enough to see... |
