Norton AntiVirus Corporate Edition 7.6, became the preferred virus protection software for the Northwestern community Tuesday.

The new licensing agreement with Symantec Corporation ended NU’s five-year run with McAfee VirusScan and Virex.

Tom Board, NU’s director of technology support services, said the new software will make it easier for students to combat virus problems.

“We feel that this software is better technically than McAfee,” Board said. “We believe it will be easier for members of the community to be up to date with virus definitions.”

Students should switch to Norton before the university’s license for McAfee VirusScan expires in June, Board said.

“When that contract ends, we will no longer obtain upgrades to the software,” Board said. “I would recommend (students) to change to Norton as soon as possible to take advantage of the software.”

The Norton AntiVirus program became available to students Tuesday just in time to catch a new virus sent in an e-mail to the Alianza listserv from a former NU student.

“My virus scan came on with a picture of a bug wiggling,” said Jacqueline Nolley, a Weinberg junior who received the virus. “I tried to delete it and it wouldn’t delete. I went to the Northwestern virus update Web site and, after I did that, it automatically deleted.”

On-campus students can download the software from two Web sites. Windows users can go to ftp://nuns.it.northwestern.edu/pub/-core_software/NAV.

Macintosh users can download software from www.at.northwestern.edu/etg/macsoft/-repository.ssi.