I hate norton. Who's with me, and why?

My personal thing is it's bandwidth hogging updater... the one that sucks 100% of your connection whenever it can.

(No, I dont use it anymore)

My name is Alex, I am a former Norton user, and I have been sober for 6 months, 3 weeks, and 1 day.

I used to use it, until it let a virus in that it was supposed to have the definitions for from 97... I use Avast and AVG now...

I just love how it randomly starts scanning while you're gaming. It un-fullscreens your game, so you have to hurry and get back in. Then you can't resume playing because the scan lags your comp so bad.

I had to completely disable it on a computer at work; its startup scan took only 20% CPU, but its process made 1.5GB of I/O read/writes to the HD in about five minutes, making the computer grind completely to a halt.

I dont touch Norton, its not free, and 1) Ive heard horror stories and 2) I dont use commerical software unless someone buys it for me, cause there's too many good free replacements for nearly everything

Avast! there mateys

Definitely. I use Avast! on my tablet, and rare is the day that it doesn't chime "Virus database updated!" when I turn it on and connect to the 'net. Its realtime protection seems good, and it never bogs my computer down. Free (as in cheese) software ftw.

yeah, I used Norton up until the first time my computer had a major crash and I had to renistall the OS. Norton did now want to install after that. Soon after, I got AVG Free for my computer (thanks progssilb), and have loved it ever since. You know a program is low resource when you can't tell its running on XP and 128MB RAM.

I installed AVG once on a friend's laptop, but we both agreed it was an inferior product to Avast!.

I use linux

When I used to use windows I had zone alarm (got for free legally), firewall in router, and avast. There was a stupid half-way subscription to norton that came with the computer, but it was just annoying and kept asking me to buy the full version, so I *nixed that ( ).

pardon my french, but Nortons is a piece of shit! it sucks!

It causes my computer to take 15-20 minutes to fucking boot!

Also, Since my dad payed for it, he won't let me uninstall it.

*netham45 sobs

I doubt that it's Norton that takes your computer 15-20 minutes to boot; it's more probable that you have unnecessary junk (eg, device drivers) clogging up your windows ini files.

We got so annoyed by the pop-up that we finnaly bought it and then Norton STOPED WORKING after we entered in the code it wont even start up!

I tried the suppport but ofcourse its all indians that you cant understand on the other end. I hates it!

Uh... ALL updates will use 100% of your bandwidth, as will all downloads. Not sure what you are expecting?

Nortons does suck tho. My dad is constantly fighting it and having troubles with it. I use Linux But I use AVG Free Edition when I'm in windows - no probs with it at all

Hmm, it occurred to me that perhaps we should start a sticky in calc/comp open topic about free software packages (OpenOffice 2, GIMP, AVG, Avast, etc) that are decent. In addition, or instead, perhaps an AVG and an Avast fan would be willing to post a review?

There are already things like this (such as at wikipedia) - no need to recreate it



would YOU like to put your computer up as bait to test the strength of each AV suite? I'd rather not sacrifice my computer to some virus lovin just to test some free AV software - people can just pick whichever they initially like....

I am most def with you.

There way to targeted, and every computer I have used Norton with has crashed in less and a month of having it. I use McAfee and AVG now, and they work Perfectly

I will never use Norton, 90% I use it my computer is infected with WAY to many viruses. Some people, like my brother, say "It works fine " but there computer is more messed up then mine last one was, and hes talking about "When ever you get on my computer, you screw it up." The first Time I ever got on his computer, IE crashed before I opened up a page. Thats almost always what happens to the computers I use that have Norton on it.

Of course, I suggest alot of stuff about computer safety to my brothers and sisters, like use Opera, or FF, instead of IE, and plenty of other things. But they never listen, and always end up having to recover there computer.

Alot of what goes wrong with someones computer, has to do with the software they use, thats why I try and find the best things to use for my computer, and spread it around

My Opinion:
Virus Software => McAfee, and AVG
Internet Browser => FireFox
Instant Messanger => The normal messanger

The only security problems you will have with an instant messanger, is trusting your friends. Sending files back and forth and getting viruses from it is a big way that people dont trust the main instant messangers (AIM, MSNM, Live!, XFire, etc... ). Most use Trillian, which I agree is very nice to use, but most of the time its what Virus protection you use and how badly your beat your IM with file transfers.

I agree with a lot of it, but I think for people who have accounts on different protocols, stuff like Trillian and GAIM are a great thing to have.

I highly, *HIGHLY* doubt those are viruses. I think you are confusing viruses with adware/spyware. Adware/spyware cause crashes, lockups, and other such nasties. Viruses usually use your computer to spread themselves, fu*k with your data, and wipe your drive. Also remember that even things like trojans aren't viruses, they are worms, but I'll let that distinction slide for another day

My dad's computer runs norton, and it is rock solid. He has no crashes whatsoever. My mom's computer ALSO runs nortons, same story. My sisters computer ALSO runs nortons (these are all seperate computers), and again, no viruses or crashes. Nortons is a solid AV scanner, it is just annoying. It DOES catch viruses, it DOES do its job properly, it just isn't particularly friendly and is annoying.

The difference between why my family can all run nortons with no probs and yours can't? I'm guessing its because my family scan regularly, and check for spyware with both adaware and spybot S&D. They also use common sense when downloading files, and always scan before installing. Lastly, ever computer is running windows automatic updates, and manually update checks are done weekly. Can you make these same statements with your family? The fault is most definitely NOT with nortons, but with the user.



Not true. Alot of what goes wrong with someones computer is the USERS fault. An overly obscene percentage of viruses and worms require USER activation to run! I'm talking in the upper 90% are SOCIAL ENGINEERING that a user must EXPLICITLY RUN. I know of NO anti-virus program that will prevent you from running a program immediately. Even the "active protection" most offer won't catch it in time if you download and run it right away

[quote]My Opinion:
Virus Software => McAfee, and AVG[quote]

Avoid McAfee. It is no better than Norton (and is actually much worse). Its "security center" that is supposed to let you know your computers security level is really just a giant ad that looks for other McAfee products on your computer



If a friend is sending your viruses over AIM/MSN/Yahoo!/etc, I'd question whether or not that person is truly your "friend", as those are all user-initiated transfers. So either your friend is a moron and didn't scan it, it got infected mid-flight (highly, highly unlikely), or he is trying to screw with you.

My computer never gets infected, and it runs Norton and Webroot Spysweeper. We have problems with noton sometimes though (on 1 of 3 computers) when registering it that it refuses to work until I mess around with it a *lot*

I personally use Avast! or the (nonexistent) protection in the Linux kernel.
How about firewalls, though? Anyone have opinions about those?
The family computer here runs Norton, it seems pretty stable. When we finally got a copy of Norton free after rebate, it removed a couple viruses (adware, whatever) and sped up boot drastically.