Norton Utilities - from the grave to your PC, soon?

Iknewitwin7 said:

How to you kill zombie's? and will it work on Norton Utl? Why would they bring that back?

You kill zombies with a stake thru the heart norton also requires a silver bullet. NU is hard to remove, aresource hog, has no support, isnt the best at anything it does and not free.

Think I dont like it.

Ken

I've not used Norton's in three years, I do have an older system and I am concerned about its Footprint. Perhaps when I get a new unit I will consider it, but for now I've been very happy with Avast.

daveyboy37 said:

Be careful mate... proof in black and white holds no sway on here. Not compared with " Norton is crap. I know cos i used it years ago".

kellymac35 said:

I personally don't care what you use mate......I just noticed the article in this months P.C World magazine. And thought you might enjoy it.

I grew to hate anything Norton/Symantec because how can you trust a software company that cannot figure out how to remove/re-install their own software? Jeeezzzz.

However, as I was getting ready to switch one client with 7 desktops OFF Norton AV 2008 and prior, Norton AV 2009 came out and was a free upgrade for 2008 users. So I gave it a shot....

I believe they must have fired all the idiots that had grown Norton AV into the core-hog it was and hired a completely new staff.

Not only does Norton AV 2009 work very well, the FIRST thing it does is remove all previous versions regardless of how they were installed.

So for me personally, no, no more Norton/Symantec. But for people who are not computer literate enough to defend themselves the AV 2009 product works very well and efficiently.

(I cannot believe I have just defended a Norton product....)

As for Norton Utilities - it would have to offer something REALLY great AND be professionally engineered (i.e. can it uninstall itself? ) before I would even read the tech specs, much less install it.

johngalt said:

The release of Norton Utilities for Windows XP and Vista is intended to address the "clutter" on PCs that slows down performance, Reynolds says.

Considering that with the clutter and without Norton, the system is still 25% faster and more responsive than without the clutter and with Norton

screwballl said:

Considering that with the clutter and without Norton, the system is still 25% faster and more responsive than without the clutter and with Norton

I've never seen such stats. I believe it for pre-2009 versions of Norton but not with the latest one.

IMHO
Peter Norton programs were really useful. They were well written, compact, ran with speed, and all around performance was great. Alas, Symantec has abandoned all the above qualities. I stopped using Symantec.

This brings to mind a similar situation. There was a file manager called XTree Gold. It was a file manager deluxe. MS bought the rights I believe and incorporated it into Win 3.1 and Win 95. Since then Win's file manager has degraded to what you see in Win 7. I now use Salamander.

HammerHead said:

IMHO
Peter Norton programs were really useful. They were well written, compact, ran with speed, and all around performance was great. Alas, Symantec has abandoned all the above qualities. I stopped using Symantec.

This brings to mind a similar situation. There was a file manager called XTree Gold. It was a file manager deluxe. MS bought the rights I believe and incorporated it into Win 3.1 and Win 95. Since then Win's file manager has degraded to what you see in Win 7. I now use Salamander.

Tsk, tsk, your age is showing......

So is mine since I once used Xtree Gold!

I've often questioned if Symantec has ever written and released a program of their own. It seems like they only buy good software from other companies, and then work hard at screwing it up.

Peter Norton's programs are just one example and Ghost is another.

Way back in the early 90's, Norton's Speeddisk, a HD defragger, was crashing Seagate hard drives around the world. I've not been a Norton fan since then.

X-Tree? I just could never warm up to that program. I can't remember now, after all these years, just what it was about it that I didn't like.

I literally fell in love with "PC-Tools" from "Central Point Software".
That appears to be another company that was bought out by MS, because right after "Central Point" disappeared off the radar, MS came out with it's first Defrag program that looked and acted exactly the the "Compress" program from C.P.
And about that same time, MS came out with a new Backup program that worked exactly like the backup program in "PC Tools".
That was all back in the DOS 6.x days.

OK, that's all ancient history now. Today one of my top five Utilities is the "Norton Removal Tool".......followed closely by the "McAfee Removal Tool".

I'll repeat what I've said hundreds of times on dozens of Tech Forums.....
"The best computer security software in the world, is 100%, absolutely, positively, FREE."

I love a quote that came to me from a fellow in Serbia, "we don't buy no stinkin' software!".
That kind-of says it all.

Cheers Mates, Y'all have a great July 4th!

The Doctor

I knew Peter back in the day when he actually was Norton Utilities. He wrote some great stuff. So did the programmers who worked for him. It got bad when Symantec took control. They lived off his reputation and did everything they could to force you into permanent bondage with their software. (They ruined Ghost, too, after they bought it.)

However, Norton's Internet Security and Anti-Virus 2009 is a different beast. I'm guessing the group who had been running things over at Symantec must have tried to retire on their paper earnings and gone bust with the market, leaving real programmers to make the decisions as to how the utility and prophylactic software should work. Version 2009 is just plain GOOD! And, as another poster said before me, I never thought I'd see the day when I'd be praising a product from Symantec again. I'm genuinly impressed.

copernicus said:

My middle name is Norton.

=*(

Ed Norton,,, you mean from the Honeymooners?